


Head Over Heels

by trixietru



Series: Falling Slowly [2]
Category: Psych
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-25 13:06:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trixietru/pseuds/trixietru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "Falling Slowly". Back in Santa Barbara, Shawn and Lassiter try to make things work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Ah, don't take my heart,  
Don't break my heart,  
Don't, don't throw it away_  
Tears for Fears

Less than half a mile after he passes the “Welcome to Santa Barbara” sign, Shawn has to pull over to the side of the road to throw up.

Sudden onset nausea after entering the city limits can’t be a good sign.

He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous; it’s just _home_ , and home is Gus and pineapple smoothies and sunny boardwalks and Lassiter. And okay, maybe Lassiter is a teeny tiny part of why he’s nervous, because attempting to make this thing work in Real Life is going to be a lot more difficult than enjoying fun sexytimes on the road. Real Life is where Lassie has a grown-up job and a mortgage and an ex-wife and probably a savings account or an IRA or something. Shawn isn’t even entirely certain what an IRA is; he counts on Gus to know boring facts like that, so that he can free his mind up for more interesting things, like trying to figure out how Billy Zane could get his career back on track. Clearly he should have capitalized more on the success of _Titanic_ somehow, but surely there’s still a way to…

Wait, what had he been thinking about? Oh, right. How Lassie was going to get tired of him in a few weeks and dump him on his ass because he can’t adequately define what a 401(k) is, although, do both people in a relationship really NEED to know that? Isn’t one of them knowing sufficient, particularly if it’s the one who actually has a job? Which is another reason why Lassiter is going to get sick of him, the fact that he’s currently a lowly unemployed slacker. 

Shawn knows he’s distracting himself by thinking about Lassiter right now. As doomed, doomed, doomed as their relationship might be, they probably still have at least a few weeks before it all goes to hell, and Shawn is a live-in-the-moment kind of guy. It’s easier to dwell on something that’s not even a problem yet than it is to face up to what’s really bothering him, which is that he’s home again. He’s in Santa Barbara. And Henry isn’t. Which in the past might have actually been a relief, but since the reason Henry’s not there is that he got shot and bled out in front of Shawn and died, well, all things considered, Shawn would really prefer it if Henry were still here. You know, alive. 

His hands are shaking. Fuck.

Okay, he can do this. He’s going to get back on his bike and go straight to Lassie’s place, where Lassie will distract him by being unwittingly sexy, with his rolled up sleeves and his manly chest, and…yeah, this is good. If he can get absorbed in a fantasy about how hot Lassie is, and how good it will be to see him again, and how even better it will be to _feel_ him again, then maybe he can forget for a little while how Henry’s blood felt spilling out around his fingers when he tried to slow down the flow by putting his hand over the wound. 

Stop it, he tells himself. Focus. He gets back on his bike and drives into town, but doesn’t go straight to Lassiter’s place as he had planned. Instead, he goes by his old apartment at Mee Mee’s Fluff and Fold, which has inexplicably been rented out to something called Majik Touch Dry Cleaners. What a waste of excellent living space! After that he stops by his favorite local smoothie place for a bottle of water and a delicious frosty tropical fruit flavored treat. He has to admit that it’s a little gratifying when the owner of the place comes rushing out from behind the counter to hug him, saying something about how he’s her favorite customer and if he’s back she’ll be able to make her rent payment next month. It’s nice to be needed. 

After that he rides past the former Psych office, which is now apparently an insurance place. Seeing the cheerful green lettering gone from the window is kind of heartbreaking. He needs to go see Gus, because after all Gus is the one who has had to see the office for all these months looking sad and serious and un-Psych-like, but that’s going to have to wait for tomorrow. Tonight is for seeing Lassiter again. 

It’s been nearly three weeks since he and Lassie parted ways in Atlanta. In the end, it was clear that they were going back to Santa Barbara; Lassiter had a home and a career there, and Shawn had Gus, who he missed terribly. Lassiter had offered to buy him a plane ticket home, but there was no way Shawn was going to leave his bike; the only thing he’s had in his life longer than that motorcycle is Gus. More than that though, the bike is a symbol of independence. If things get to be too much, he can just jump on it and _go_. 

Lassie understands that, or at least he says he does; Shawn could tell that he was a little disappointed that they wouldn’t be traveling back home together, but Shawn thinks the temporary separation might be a good thing. He knows that he’s a commitment-phobe, and he’s willing to concede that maybe that’s not entirely healthy, but Lassiter’s the opposite: he’s like, a commitment-slut, or something, and that has to be equally bad. This was, after all, a man who blew his nest egg on a condo so that he could live with a woman he had been on one aborted date with. Shawn finds that kind of complete whackadoodle insanity incredibly appealing, particularly when it comes wrapped up in the package of one Detective Carlton Lassiter, whom the world at large seems to see as repressed and uptight, but at the same time he wants to give Lassie a chance to think about what, as well as who, he’s doing here.

Not that he wants Lassiter to back out of this relationship! Not at all. He just doesn’t want Lassie to wake up one day and feel trapped by decisions he made when he was feeling emotionally vulnerable or especially horny or whatever it was that he was feeling that caused him to go looking for Shawn on the other side of the country. 

Shawn had never intended to come back to Santa Barbara so soon; he didn’t think about it much, but there was a part of him that assumed it might be years before he went home again. But then Lassie had shown up one day out of nowhere, looking at him with so much want and need that Shawn honestly thought his heart might have stopped beating for a few seconds, like he was the heroine of some cheesy romance novel. He imagined it was what Charlie Brown might feel like if the little red-haired girl that he had adored from afar for years had shown up on his doorstep one day and proclaimed her undying devotion, except he had much better hair than poor old Charlie Brown. 

Lassiter might not have proclaimed his undying devotion exactly, but as much as he might want to delude himself into believing otherwise, Lassie didn’t do flings or meaningless affairs; just the fact that he had tracked Shawn down and slept with him meant that this was serious business, and seriousness of any sort usually makes Shawn anxious. So it’s puzzling that he feels so decidedly un-anxious about this; yeah, he’s worried in a theoretical way about the day when he and Lassiter are going to blow up at each other again, because that happening is inevitable, but he’s surprisingly calm over acknowledging to himself that what he has with Lassie is very real and yes, very serious.

At the moment though, he is a little bit worried about what his reception is going to be when he shows up on Lassiter’s doorstep, because Lassie miiiiiight be kind of pissed off at him right now. Getting back to Santa Barbara on his bike shouldn’t have taken more than a week, but instead of coming straight home, Shawn had done some meandering around the countryside, because while he wanted to see Lassie and Gus again, he still isn’t that keen on being home. Lassie would probably understand about that, since he had seen firsthand how conflicted Shawn had been over his decision to come back, but what he’s liable to be less understanding about is how Shawn lost the new phone Lassiter bought him before leaving Atlanta. A phone purchased for the express purpose of Shawn keeping in contact and not disappearing off the map.

“You don’t have to call me if you don’t want to,” Lassiter had said in his adorably insecure way, “but at least let Guster know where you are and if you’re okay.”

Shawn had warned him that he has terrible phone karma when he's on the road and would probably lose the phone, but Lassie hadn’t listened. And sure enough, four days into his trip back west, he couldn’t find the damn thing. Two days later he sent both Gus and Lassie postcards promising that he was on his way, but he has a feeling that Lassiter is still going to be irritated with him.

It’s getting dark now, which means that it’s probably late enough that Lassie’s home from work, unless of course he has a big case to work on. Shawn makes his way to the condo, trying to quell the butterflies in his stomach. The worst that can happen is that Lassiter will slam the door in his face, right? And in that unlikely event, Shawn will either talk his way in with his irresistible charm, or he’ll go see Gus a little earlier than planned. 

When he gets into the elevator at Prospect Gardens, the creepy elderly twins who live down the hall from Lassie are there. 

“Ladies,” he says to them politely, as they turn identical unnerving looks towards him.

“Hello,” they say in unison. 

“Are you here…” one of them says.

“to visit a friend?” the other one finishes.

“Why yes, I am! I’m here to see Detective Lassiter on the fifth floor.”

“Lovely!” they say together.

“He’s such a…” 

“nice young man. Just last week…”

“he moved some furniture for us.”

The twins have distracted him enough that he’s made it to Lassiter’s door without any further procrastination. He bids them goodnight, wondering if this is what the future holds for him and Gus when they get old, finishing each other’s sentences and creeping out younger people. He thinks he could probably live with that. It’s just too bad that they’re not twins, but maybe it’s even creepier that they don’t look alike.

Lassiter opens the door after Shawn’s third knock. The man looks _tired_ ; there are bags under his eyes and his shoulders are slumped. For a long moment he just stares silently at Shawn, who finally clears his throat uncomfortably and says “Hey, Lass. Is that a gun in your hand or are you just happy to see me?”

Lassiter hastily holster his service weapon. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting company.”

Shawn winces. “I know, I lost my phone and…can I come in? Please?”

“Oh!” Lassiter looks startled at the realization that Shawn is still standing in the hall. “Of course. Come in. “

Shawn follows him into the condo. “You look like you just got home from work,” he says, referring to how Lassie’s still wearing his holster and tie.

“I’ve had a lot of catching up to do after being gone for three weeks. Where have you been, Shawn?”

His tone doesn’t change from one sentence to the next; he sounds calm but fatigued, like Shawn has already exhausted him by not showing up in a timely manner. Shawn looks down at his shoes.

“I’m sorry, Lassie. I needed a little extra time before I could come back here. And I’m really sorry about the phone. I’ll pay you back for it. Look, I understand if you don’t want me here. I can leave if –”

Lassiter grabs him by the arm. “Don’t you dare leave,” he says a little desperately, then shuts up like he’s afraid he’s said too much. Shawn feels a familiar little squeeze around his heart, a feeling he only ever gets around Lassie.

“Okay,” he agrees softly.

Lassiter releases his arm and moves around him towards the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I was just about to make myself a sandwich.”

“I can always eat, Lassie. You know that.”

Lassiter starts gathering things together for sandwiches – bread, a knife, some kind of deli meat from the refrigerator. “Do you want mayo? Mustard?”

Oh, this is so _awkward_. Shawn is usually fine with awkward, hell, he often instigates awkward, but this is just uncomfortable and no fun and he’s done with the small talk.

“Lassie,” he says a little helplessly, reaching out to touch Lassiter’s shoulder, and suddenly he’s up against the counter with Lassiter’s mouth plastered across his. Worth the awkwardness, he decides, rubbing the smooth leather of the holster before sliding his fingers through Lassie’s hair and pulling him closer so he can’t get away. Lassiter is making soft, needy sounds against his mouth and has an iron grip on his hips that doesn’t ease up until he finally ends the kiss and rests his forehead against Shawn’s. 

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he admits a little breathlessly.

Shawn bites back the inappropriate comment on the tip of his tongue (maybe that’s a sign of maturity? Nah.) and pets his hand down Lassiter’s back. Poor Lassie, always so sure that no one wants him. Well, Shawn wants him. Shawn wants him a lot. 

“I AM sorry,” he apologizes one last time. “Come on Lassie, let’s skip dinner and go right to dessert.”

Lassiter smiles slightly. “It’s amazing you ever get laid if that’s the kind of pick-up line you use.”

“Are you questioning whether or not I have game?” Shawn asks, quirking an eyebrow. “’Cause let me tell you, Lassie, I’ve got a whole Toys R Us store worth of game. I’ve got Battleship and Clue and Jenga and Tiddleywinks…”

“You should shut up now before you ruin the mood,” Lassiter advises, and kisses him again.

And yeah, _this_ is what Shawn came back to Santa Barbara for, rough, hungry kisses and Lassie’s hands stroking up Shawn’s back then back down to his ass like he’s trying to map the planes and angles of Shawn’s body. After a few minutes he pulls away, grabbing Shawn’s wrist and leading him out of the kitchen.

“The bedroom’s this way.”

Shawn is busy trying to unbutton Lassie’s shirt while they’re walking. “Who needs a bedroom? Why not the kitchen, or right here in the hall?” he attempts to demonstrate the possibilities by pushing Lassie against the wall and kissing him again. 

“Because I don’t keep condoms in the kitchen or the hall?”

Shawn considers this briefly. “That is sound reasoning,” he’s forced to agree.

“Besides,” Lassiter continues, “you made me wait three weeks for this. You can wait twenty more seconds.”

Shawn freezes, because Lassie isn’t usually so passive-aggressive, and the fact that he is now means that he’s probably really mad, but trying to hide it. He takes a step back, still hanging on to Lassie’s shirt but putting a little space between them.

“You’re pissed.”

“Of course I’m pissed! I was worried about you, you idiot! Jesus, Spencer, you couldn’t find a phone somewhere and call me?”

Guilt is starting to overtake lust. Lassiter isn’t touching him anymore, is instead leaning against the wall fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. Shawn shuts his eyes, trying to tamp down the panic threatening to suffocate him at the thought that Lassie could end this thing between them right here, right now.

After the silence stretches out for a few more unbearable seconds, Shawn opens his eyes and says quietly, “If you’re going to kick me out, then do it. If you’re not, then let me make it up to you.”

Lassiter clenches his fists and looks at the floor, like he’s giving this some thought, and for a terrifying moment Shawn worries that he really is about to get kicked out, but suddenly Lassie’s hands are fisted in his t-shirt and he’s being pushed backwards into the bedroom.  
“Never do that to me again, Spencer,” and then he’s falling back onto the bed with Lassiter on top of him, and he’s never been more relieved in his life.

Later, after sex and a shower and sandwiches, Shawn is sprawled out bonelessly on Lassie’s couch.

“I wish you’d been with me the last couple of weeks, Lassie. I spent a week working as a tour guide at the Alamo. We have to go back there sometime, you would love it. It’s all cowboys and history and macho shit.”

Lassiter has that slightly pained expression on his face that suggests he’s already regretting his next words, but he forges ahead anyway.

“Spencer, why did you stop for a week to work? I thought you had enough money for the trip back.”

Shawn shrugs. “I needed a little more time. And I wanted to give you some space, you know?” What he can’t quite bring himself to say is that the closer he got to California, the more he wanted to turn around and go anywhere else. Alaska, maybe; he’s never been and it would be cool. The only thing that kept him from running was knowing that Lassiter was here waiting for him. 

“Space for what?” Lassiter asks, sounding baffled. “Wait, did you think I would change my mind?”

Shawn looks at the ceiling, because he doesn’t want to see the mixture of irritation and hurt on Lassie’s face right now. “Maybe.”

“Haven’t I proven to you that I’m serious about this?” Oh crap, Lassie’s annoyed now. Shawn peeks over at him to see him scowling.

“I know you’re serious, Lassiepants,” he says gently “I just keep thinking that you’re going to come to your senses and run screaming the other way.”

“I lost my senses years ago, thanks to you,” Lassiter grumbles, but he seems slightly mollified. 

“You’re welcome!” Shawn says, beaming. Lassie rolls his eyes and Shawn relaxes again.

Lassiter changes the subject by asking “Have you seen Guster yet?”

“No, you were the first stop on my Welcome Home tour. Well, second stop, actually. They were overjoyed to see me at The Smoothie Hut. I’ll go see Gus tomorrow.”

“I’m flattered that I came in second to the smoothies,” Lassiter says dryly. 

“You should be. I’ve been daydreaming about their Mango-Pineapple Super Smoothie for the last three states. Luckily, you’re almost as delicious.” He peeks over again to see Lassie’s ears turn pink, which is what always happens when Shawn pays him a ridiculous compliment, then goes back to talking about Gus.

“I was thinking I would surprise Gus at his place in the morning. It’s Saturday, so he should be home.”

“No,” Lassiter says. “Wait until afternoon. Guster has his cake decorating class on Saturday mornings.”

Shawn sits up. “How do you know that?” he demands. “Also, _cake decorating_? Seriously? How is it that out of the three of us, Gus is the only one who’s completely straight?”

“I think he’s just going through all of the courses offered by the community center. Four months ago it was dioramas, then digital photography, basket weaving, oil painting, and now cake decorating. He claims that it’s a good way to meet women, but I think he’s just trying to keep busy without you around.”

“Ouch. Right to the heart, Lassie. I’ll make it up to Gussy, but don’t think I didn’t notice how you avoided my question. Are you and Gus BFFs now? Do you braid each other’s hair and talk about boys over skinny lattes?”

Lassiter looks annoyed, but that’s okay; Shawn’s been annoying him for years, and look where that’s gotten him.

“We talk about you, over beers. Does that count?”

“Definitely. What do you say about me? Like, do you talk about how sexy I am, or my awesome dance moves, or how amazing my hair is?”

“No. Mostly Guster tells me embarrassing stories from when you were a teenager. Like the time you took Sharon Grenier to the water park and—”

“No! No! We are not telling that story tonight. Or _ever_. Oh, Gus is going to pay for this.”

Lassiter smirks at him. “I have enough blackmail material to last for years. I had no idea how rewarding a friendship with Guster was going to be.”

“Huh,” Shawn says, getting off the couch and dropping to his knees in front of the chair Lassiter’s sitting in. “I think you should give some more thought to how much more rewarding a friendship with me is,” he says, running a hand up Lassie’s thigh. “I bet I can make a convincing argument for you to forget every embarrassing story Gus tells about me.”

“Oh?” Lassiter says roughly, threading his fingers through Shawn’s shower damp hair, “Fine. Convince me.”

As he palms Lassie’s dick through the thin pajama pants, Shawn thinks that at this particular moment, it’s good to be home.


	2. Chapter 2

Early the next afternoon, Shawn is parked on a bench across the street from Gus’s apartment building, waiting for him to get back from cake decorating class. He’s feeling relaxed in the way that only getting well-laid can make him feel, and he’s anticipating seeing Gus again, even if Gus is possibly, justifiably, a little bit mad at him for not keeping in touch as well as he should. When he sees the Blueberry come down the road, he feels a deep wave of affection for the little blue car and its driver.

It’s obvious by the way the car comes screeching to a halt that Gus has spotted him. He swerves into a parking space and jumps out of the car, advancing on Shawn quickly.

“Shawn!” he says, and throws his arms around Shawn’s neck. “Shawn, I’m going to kill you!” he says, and he’s definitely crying a little bit – Shawn can feel the tears against his neck – but he mostly manages to pull himself together before stepping away and punching Shawn hard in the shoulder.

“Oww!”

“That’s for running off for nine months and losing your phone and making me worry.”

“I’m so sorry, dude. You know how much I suck at keeping up with phones when I’m on the road. I didn’t mean for you to worry, I just had to stay away from here for a while.”

Gus nods understandingly and Shawn loves Gus so much for the way he’s capable of being so accepting. “It’s cool, Shawn. Just don’t do it again, okay?”

“Deal,” Shawn says, mentally crossing his fingers, because what if he needs to leave town again one day? Like after Lassie kicks him out and his heart is all broken? Gus will just have to understand yet again. For now, he shakes all of that off.

“Now come on. I’ve traveled from one side of this country to the other, and I haven’t found fries quatro queso dos fritos served anywhere else. My treat.”

Gus gives him a little grin. “You know that’s right!”

Over bites of cheesy, starchy, deep-fried heaven, Shawn listens as Gus fills him in on his life for the past months: his promotion, his short-lived relationships with Kellee (too clingy), Karlie (too aloof), Kandi (too much of a militant survivalist obsessed with the coming apocalypse), and Alice (just right, until she dumped him), and his forays into photography and oil painting. He even manages to not make any snarky comments when Gus proudly shows him pictures of his most recent cake, elaborately decorated with a montage from a Red Phantom comic book. Well, not many snarky comments. Well, not any super-mean snarky comments anyway.

Shawn then tells Gus about some of the more interesting jobs he held on the road: baseball mascot, dog groomer, mattress tester, and blackjack dealer at a casino in New Jersey. He hadn’t stayed at any of those jobs for longer than four or five weeks, but each one had been fun in different ways. He keeps his tone light and doesn’t bring up the nightmares, or the various benders he had gone on throughout his absence, when he tried to subdue his memory with alcohol, or the panic attacks he still gets occasionally. Gus has already worried enough over things he has no control over.

“And now you’re staying at Lassiter’s?” Gus asks after Shawn is done recounting his adventures. 

“For the time being.”

“If you need to, you know you can stay with me for a while.”

“Thanks man, but there are certain fringe benefits to staying with Lassie that you can’t provide. Well, you could, but it would be kind of weird because you’re like a brother to me.”

Gus scowls at him. “Yeah, maybe you should stay at Carlton’s. That’s going well, huh?”

“Strangely enough, yeah. He even gave me a key to his place this morning, so I guess it’s going well for him too. I really, really like him Gus. Like, not to sound all sappy, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about anyone before.” He looks down at his plate, not really wanting to see the expression on Gus’s face as he continues. “Even with Jules…I know that I loved her, but I was constantly holding back when I was with her, always trying to keep her from finding out the truth. It was always so hard. With Lassie, he already knows the truth, and it just makes everything easier. Well,” he looks up again and grins “and also hard. But in this case, that’s part of the fun.”

“Shawn, I’m happy that you’re happy, and I’m glad you finally got your man, but I don’t want to know those kinds of details.”

Shawn rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll spare your innocent ears. I have to say though Gus, I think I might be higher on the Richter scale than I used to assume, because it’s like I want Lassie _all the time_ , and it wasn’t that way with Jules, which has to be down to me, because hello, she’s beautiful.”

Gus looks confused for a moment, then his face clears and he says “You mean the Kinsey scale, Shawn. The Richter scale is used to measure the strength of earthquakes. The Kinsey scale is for rating sexual orientation.”

Shawn shrugs. “I’ve heard it both ways. And anyway, I’ve definitely felt the earth move with Lassie a few times.”

Gus throws a napkin at him. “Whatever. Like I said, I don’t need to hear details.”

“Gus, do you think the fact that I’ve fallen for both Jules and Lassie makes me some kind of bisexual badge bunny?”

“Shawn! Wait…are you serious? Is that something you really worry about?”

“It’s weird, isn’t it? That I’ve slept with them both, and they were partners. Plus, my dad was a cop, I spent all that time as a kid around cops…do I have some kind of fetish, or something?”

“Shawn, I think lots of people get into relationships with their coworkers, and for the last six years you’ve mostly just worked with Juliet, Carlton, and me. We’ve all spent a lot of time together. And you know, you do understand cops better than anyone who isn’t actually one could. It kind of makes sense that you would end up in a relationship with one.”

Shawn wrinkles his nose. “That’s the second time you’ve called him ‘Carlton’. This thing where the two of you are drinking buddies and you call him by his first name is freaking me out.”

“That is his name, Shawn,” Gus says, scowling. “Frankly, I find it a little strange that you still call him Lassie all the time. Do you call him that when—” he stops speaking abruptly, but it’s too late because Shawn is already laughing at him.

“Do I call him that when we’re doing the mattress mambo? I thought you didn’t want any details, Gus. Isn’t that what you said? 

“I DON’T want any details, Shawn! I’m just saying, it’s a little odd that you never call the man by his first name.”

“He just doesn’t seem like a Carlton to me. That sounds so formal and cold, or worse, like the kid who eats paste in the back of the class. Lassie suits him better; it sounds loyal and brave and kind of silly but also trustworthy.”

“I think you’re describing the TV dog, Shawn.”

“Can I help it if they share some of the same qualities? Anyway, Lassie hasn’t complained about me calling him that for years, so I don’t think he minds. He still calls me Spencer sometimes, including when we’re getting all naked and sweaty with each other.”

Gus holds up his hand. “Please stop. That’s enough relationship talk for today.”

“But Gus, I haven’t told you yet about the cute little sounds Lassie makes when –”

“Enough, Shawn!”

“When he’s sleeping! Jeez, what did you think I was going to say?”

“Never mind,” Gus says, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Shawn decides he’s had enough fun for the time being and that he should probably tackle a more serious topic while he’s feeling relatively relaxed.

“I think I’m going to the house tomorrow. You know, Henry’s house. Wanna come keep me company?”

Gus’s expression softens immediately. “Of course, Shawn. I promised my mom I’d go with her to church in the morning, but I’m free after that.”

“Cool,” Shawn says, making a show of looking at the dessert menu so he doesn’t have to see Gus’s sympathy face. “Meet me out there after lunch. Hey, you wanna hit the arcade? You would not believe the score I got on Street Fighter III at this bowling alley in Missouri.”

“Street Fighter III is my game, Shawn. No way can you beat me!”

“Please,” Shawn snorts derisively. “I will kick your ass.”

“Oh, it is _on_. Let’s go.”

***

It’s four o’clock in the morning and Shawn can’t sleep. He’s tried watching TV and reading, and now he’s lying in bed, eyes dutifully closed, but sleep is eluding him. He had gotten home late enough from hanging out with Gus that Lassie was already dozing off, and Shawn had shooed him off to bed saying that Lassie needed his beauty sleep more than Shawn did. Now Lassiter is stretched out beside him, snoring away peacefully. Shawn thinks it’s kind of cute, but he’s gotten bored. He reaches over to nudge Lassiter with his foot.

“Hey Lassie, are you awake?”

No answer. Lassiter, still asleep, shifts away a little, probably to avoid Shawn’s cold toes.

Clearly, a more direct approach is going to be necessary. 

Shawn reaches over and slips a hand under the t-shirt Lassiter is wearing, pushing the shirt up enough that he can tongue one of Lassie’s nipples. Lassiter jerks awake with a gasp.

“Spencer, what the hell are you doing?”

“Oh hey,” Shawn says innocently “You’re awake. I can’t sleep either, Lassie. What should we do about that?”

“*I* was sleeping just fine,” Lassiter grouses, but he pulls Shawn closer, which Shawn takes as an invitation to resume his attentions. He moves to suck at Lassiter’s neck, shifting so that he’s laying half on top with one of his legs in between Lassie’s legs, so he can feel Lassie starting to get hard against him. Lassiter shoves at the shirt Shawn’s wearing and Shawn shivers in delight to feel Lassiter’s hands on him. Things are just getting really good (that is, Lassie has just reached into Shawn’s boxer shorts to wrap a hand around his cock) when Lassiter’s phone rings. 

“Crap,” Lassiter groans, letting go of Shawn in order to reach for the phone on the nightstand. 

“Oh my god,” Shawn moans, “I will do ANYTHING if you don’t answer that.” 

“Sorry,” Lassiter apologizes as he answers the phone. After a minute of listening to the person on the other end, he sighs and says “Secure the scene. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

He hangs up the phone then sits up, as Shawn slumps back into his pillow in defeat. “Body found outside one of the clubs on State Street. Looks like murder. I have to go.”

“I know,” Shawn says, willing himself not to sound as whiny as he feels. “Go solve crime.”

“We’ll finish this later,” Lassiter promises, planting a quick kiss on Shawn’s mouth.

“Huh,” Shawn says “I’m finishing this now whether you’re here or not. But we can do it again later too.”

After Lassie leaves, Shawn eventually drifts off into a restless sleep, dreading the day ahead of him.  



	3. Chapter 3

“Shawn, is that you?” Henry’s voice booms from the living room as Shawn walks through the front door of the Spencer house. His mom walks past him as he goes in, not looking at him. He pauses to watch her leave, then continues into the house.  
  
“Yeah, dad. I’m home!” Shawn says. Everything looks the same as it always has. Henry has his back to him as Shawn comes into the room, fiddling with one of the fish plaques on his wall.   
  
“I knew you’d give up and quit,” Henry grumbles. “You just can’t follow through on anything, can you?”  
  
Shawn feels the familiar flush of anger at his dad’s words, even though he’s not entirely certain what he’s talking about.   
  
“You wouldn’t understand!” he snaps.  
  
“Understand what, kid?” Henry asks, turning around. There’s something wrong, but Shawn can’t put his finger on what it is yet. “Understand that you never take responsibility for anything? That instead of solving your problems you just run away?”  
  
“You just can’t accept that I want a life that’s different from yours!”  
  
“I understand that you’re a failure, son. You’ve wasted everything I gave you.”  
  
There’s a tiny spot on Henry’s shirt that Shawn can’t seem to stop staring at. As Henry continues to lecture, it starts getting bigger.  
  
“Dad? Is that blood? Are you hurt?”  
  
“Don’t try and change the subject, Shawn! What about Juliet, huh? Girl like that, she’s not going to wait around forever.”  
  
“Where’s my phone?” Shawn gasps frantically, patting at his pockets, watching in horror as red blossoms across Henry’s chest. “Dad, you need to sit down, you’re hurt!”  
  
“See, this is just what I’m talking about, Shawn! You can’t even keep up with your phone. I paid good money for that thing. I should have known better than to get you such an expensive gift.”  
  
There’s a trickle of blood at the corner of Henry’s mouth now. Shawn feels paralyzed with terror.  Helplessly he looks over at the window to see if his mom is still outside, but all he can see out the window is Yang, wearing her white mental hospital jumpsuit. She places her hands against the window panes, then leans forward and kisses the glass, winking at him slyly.  
  
He hastily turns back to look at Henry again, only to find that he’s on the floor now, blood pooling around him.   
“Dad, we have to get you some help!” He can move now, and he drops to his knees beside Henry, feeling the blood soak through his jeans.   
  
Henry reaches up, grabs hold of Shawn’s shirt, and pulls him close, whispering in his ear “You’re such a disappointment, kid.”  
  
Shawn jerks awake, knotted up in sheets and soaked with sweat. For a split second he looks around at his surroundings in panic, not remembering where he is, but then it comes back to him. Lassie’s place, Lassie’s bed. Only Lassie’s not there, because – Shawn fumbles for the alarm clock on the nightstand – it’s almost nine o’clock in the morning and he’s still at work.   
  
He slowly disentangles himself from the sheets. His heart is still beating too fast, leftover adrenaline from the nightmare. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so awful, Henry bitching at him about his love life and his irresponsibility while ignoring his own injury. As it is, Shawn is having a hard time laughing about it.  
  
Obviously, this particular dream is courtesy of the fact that he’s going back to the old homestead today for the first time since Henry’s death. He hasn’t quite decided what to do with the house yet; selling it seems so _final_ , and almost like a betrayal to all the care his dad had put into the house and yard over the years, but he can’t imagine living in it either. With his current financial situation, selling is certainly the more practical option anyway.  
  
For now, he can’t think ahead that far. He takes a shower and rejects the idea of breakfast because he already feels queasy at the thought of going to the house. He leaves early enough that he’ll get there well before Gus does; he wants time to school his reaction before anyone else sees him.  
  
From the outside, the house looks empty and un-lived in. Gus had told Shawn the day before that he went by about once a month to mow the lawn, and as often as once a week to make sure the doors were still locked and that the place looked undisturbed. Gus is the best.   
  
This shouldn’t be so hard, Shawn thinks, staring at the house from the curb where he’s parked his bike. Parents die, and their kids have to deal with it, and the fact that he can’t seem to cope at all is just further proof of the fact that he is immature. He can already feel a headache starting, as he looks at the spot in the front yard where he and Gus had dug a hole looking for oil. Thinking about it is almost like being back there, dirty and sweaty and hopeful, knowing that when they strike oil they’ll be rich, and dad will be able to quit being a cop and he and mom will stop fighting about how dangerous his job is.  
  
Shawn shakes the memory off; he’ll be damned if he’s so pathetic he can’t even make it past the front yard.   
  
Inside, the house is dark and stuffy. Shawn starts throwing open windows and doors to let some air and light in. He makes a note to himself to call and have the power turned back on if he’s going to be spending time out here cleaning up. He’s grateful to see that Gus or Madeline, he’s not sure which, must have cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer before closing up the house, so at least he doesn’t have to deal with spoiled food. He looks around the kitchen, seeing evidence in the variety of utensils around the room of Henry’s late middle-aged interest in cooking. A memory assails of him of him teasing his dad about becoming the male Martha Stewart and he quickly moves out of the kitchen.   
  
He goes upstairs, passes his own bedroom in favor of going to Henry’s, where he opens the closet to find that it’s still full of tacky Hawaiian shirts. He needs to take this stuff to Goodwill, though the thought of constantly running into random citizens on the street wearing his dad’s ugly shirts makes him feel a little ill.   
  
He turns away from the closet and catches sight of himself in the full-length mirror beside the bureau, and for a moment, just as clear as day, he can see Henry standing there instead, looking like he had when Shawn was a kid, in his uniform and hat.  He blinks and the image is gone, and he hastily exits the room, but it’s too late; he can feel his chest tightening in a way that he’s come to recognize as symptomatic of the beginning of a panic attack. In the hallway, he sinks to the floor and leans against the wall, sitting up straight and willing himself to breathe deep and slow so that he doesn’t start hyperventilating.  
  
Oh, he hates this, hates this, and for a second he even hates Lassiter for making him want to come home and face all of it. He can’t catch his breath and his head is spinning and he feels clammy with sweat. And of course it’s at this moment that he hears the front door open and Gus calling out “Shawn? Where are you?”  
  
Fuck, fuck, fuck. No way does he want Gus to see him like this. He pulls himself to his feet as he hears Gus say again “Shawn? Are you in here?”  
  
“I’ll be down in a minute, buddy!” he manages to say, and he’s proud of the fact that his voice is only shaking a little bit. He staggers into the bathroom with the thought that he’ll splash some water onto his face before remembering that the water was turned off months ago, so all he can do is lean his forehead against the cool tile for a minute, forcing himself to count backwards slowly from sixty, one minute exactly for his racing heart to slow down and his breathing to even out. Fortunately, it works; he still feels shaky, but the panic has receded enough that he thinks he should be able to face Gus with at least the appearance of normalcy.   
  
He pulls open the bathroom door only to come face-to-face with Gus, who gives him a confused look.   
  
“You know there’s no water, right Shawn?”   
  
“Yeah, I was just…looking through the cabinets. You know, to see what’s here. There’s some Old Spice that I think has crossed over to become like, Ancient Spice.”  
  
“Oookayyy,” Gus says “Have you looked through any of the other rooms yet?”  
  
“Nah, I’ve just been walking through. Until I get the power turned back on, the kitchen is really the only room with enough natural light where we’ll be able to see what we’re doing, so I was thinking we could start there.”  
  
When they get back to the kitchen, Gus gives him a long, considering look. “Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”  
  
Shawn puts a hand to his heart, mocking outrage. “Dude, how could you? Just because I haven’t had a chance to get to the tanning bed yet, you think it’s okay to insult me?"  
  
Gus rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Shawn. Let’s get to work, okay? The dust in here is making my allergies flare up.”   
  
He opens a cabinet and gasps. Shawn looks around in alarm. “Is it mice? Are there mice? I knew there’d be mice.”  
  
Gus glares at him. “It’s not mice, Shawn.” He pulls something from out of the cabinet. “Look at this. Your dad had a KitchenAid Artisan Mixer!”  
  
“Okay,” Shawn says with a shrug.  
  
“It’s a state-of-the-art mixer, Shawn!”  
  
“Oh. Well then, take it.”  
  
Gus shakes his head quickly. “I couldn’t. What if you want it someday? Or you could sell it and get a couple of hundred dollars for it.”  
  
“Take it!” Shawn says, a little more sharply than he intended. He tries to soften his tone before continuing. “Take it, Gus. You know I’m never going to use it, and Henry would have wanted you to have it. Anything in here that you want, just take it, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” Gus says softly, and Shawn has to turn away so that he can’t see the concern on Gus's face anymore.  
  
For the next hour they work on packing things away in boxes that Gus brought. Shawn feels snappish and on edge, even after Gus starts a conversation on John Hughes movies to try and distract him.   
  
“I’m telling you Shawn, _Some Kind of Wonderful_ is a better movie than _Pretty in Pink_. You’re just blinded by your love of Molly Ringwald.” He’s interrupted by the ringing of his phone. After a quick conversation he hangs up and says “Lassiter’s on his way. He’s bringing pizza.”  
  
“Cool,” Shawn says distractedly, staring at an array of spatulas in the drawer in front of him. Why had Henry needed so many spatulas? He only cooked for himself, sometimes Shawn and Gus, maybe the occasional lady friend. Why would he need eight different spatulas? Shawn slams the drawer shut in frustration, because he’s never going to be able to ask Henry why he felt the need to buy eight goddamned spatulas. He looks up to see Gus looking at him worriedly and forces a smile onto his face.   
  
“Lassie’s bringing pizza? Awesome, I’m starving! And don’t think I’ve forgotten the nonsense you were spouting a minute ago. I’ll give you that Mary Stuart Masterson is totally hot in _Some Kind of Wonderful_ , but _Pretty in Pink_ is a classic, Gus! It has James Spader AND Annie Potts. It’s the ultimate Hughes/Ringwald experience.”  
  
“More ultimate than _The Breakfast Club_? I don’t think so, Shawn.”  
  
Shawn is able to keep up his end of the conversation and bicker good-naturedly – he could, after all, talk Hughes in his sleep – but when he hears a car pull into the driveway he snaps to attention.   
  
“Lassie’s here. I’m gonna go see if he needs help um, carrying the pizza or anything.”  
  
Gus looks at him skeptically. “I’m pretty sure Lassiter can carry a pizza on his own. If you want to go say hello to your boyfriend, just do it.”  
  
Shawn grins at him, a real grin this time. “Okay, I will,” he says, going to the door. He goes outside to find Lassie cradling a pizza box and pulling a six-pack out of the backseat.  
  
“Wait!” he says dramatically, throwing up a hand with a theatrical flourish. “Before you come any further, what kind of toppings did you get on the pizza?”  
  
“Half supreme, half pineapple and ham.  Is that acceptable, your highness?”  
  
“Perfect,” Shawn assures him, coming down the steps and taking both the pizza and the beer away and setting them on the hood of the car so he can pull Lassie down for a kiss. Lassie puts his arms around him and Shawn leans into the warmth of his body, and for the first time all day he can feel himself relaxing, some of the tension draining out of him. He wishes irrationally that he could just burrow into Lassiter’s chest and stay there, but Lassie probably wouldn’t appreciate having a Shawn-shaped parasite attached to him all the time, so with some reluctance, he pulls away.  
  
“Shawn, are you okay?” Lassiter asks, peering at him with concern.  
  
“Not the best day ever,” Shawn admits. “Better now, though.” He allows himself one more quick kiss, because Gus is waiting and also because now that the pizza’s here, he realizes that he hasn’t eaten all day and the smell of food is making his stomach rumble.   
  
When he turns around to go back to the house, he sees that Gus is on the porch watching them, his head tilted like he’s deep in thought.   
  
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer!” he calls, which is a totally lame thing to say, but he feels mildly embarrassed because he knows Lassiter is no fan of PDAs.  
  
“Sorry!” Gus says, shaking his head. “I wasn’t…it’s one thing to know about something, and another to see it for myself. Uh, I was thinking we could eat out here on the porch. It’s too dusty inside.”  
  
They’re just finishing up when Gus says “Hey Shawn, I almost forgot to tell you,” he reaches for his wallet and pulls out a business card “you should call Adam Hornstock. Apparently, your dad drew up a will with him a few years ago. After…after you left town, he couldn’t reach you, so he called me.”  
  
Shawn takes the card and tucks it into his pocket, even though he wants nothing to do with it. “Thanks, man. I’ll call him this week.” He stands up and stretches. “I think I’m done for today, and anyway, it’s getting too dark to see inside anymore.  I’ll call in the morning and have the power and water turned back on. I’m gonna go make sure everything’s locked up for the night.”  
  
He goes into the house but pauses once he’s inside because…well, because he’s nosy and wants to know what Gus and Lassiter are going to say without him around.   
  
“How has he been today?” he hears Lassiter ask.  
  
Gus hesitates before answering “Not good. When I got here, he was hiding out in the bathroom upstairs and he was as white as a ghost. He tries to hide it from me, but I can tell he’s been having a pretty hard time. You told me he was struggling, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until today.”  
  
Well, so much for his dazzling attempt to shield Gus from his state of mind. He’ll have to work harder at it from now on. Also, nice to know that Lassie and Gus have been gossiping about him like little old ladies.  
  
He closes up the house quickly, not lingering anywhere, then goes back out to the porch. The good feelings he had had upon seeing Lassiter have dissipated, and he’s irritable again.   
  
“I’m taking off, guys.”  
  
“You wanna come back to my place and have a Hughes marathon, so I can prove to you once and for all the superiority of <i>Some Kind of Wonderful</i>?”  
  
“Some other time, Gus. I think I’m going to go for a drive.”  
  
“You’re not coming home?” Lassiter asks, sounding a little surprised.   
  
“Nah, after being in that house all day, I need some air. Later, guys.”  
  
He’s off the porch and headed for his motorcycle before either of them can think to protest. He’s not lying about needing air, and besides, it’ll be easier for Lassie and Gus to talk about him and his myriad issues if he’s not there. Glancing back at the porch and catching sight of their worried expressions as he gets on his bike, he figures they’ll be busy dissecting his psyche for a while.   
  
After riding around for half an hour, he starts to feel a little guilty over being annoyed about Lassiter and Gus talking about him behind his back. He knows they only do it because they care, but he hates being an object of speculation unless he’s projecting the image he wants people to speculate about. People wondering if he’s psychic after a dramatic vision that solves a crime: Good. People wondering if he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown because he can’t control his emotions: Bad.   
  
To quell his guilt, he stops and buys a new phone at a Target he passes on the way back to Lassiter’s place, figuring it’s something that will make both Lassie and Gus happy.   
  
Back at the condo, he finds Lassiter bent over a file from work. Shawn averts his eyes from the pages in front of Lassie; solving crimes is not his job anymore. Lassiter looks up at him when he comes in.  
  
“Spencer, are you –”  
  
Before he can finish the question, Shawn reaches over and puts his hand over Lassie’s mouth. Lassiter blinks at him in a mixture of annoyance and confusion.   
  
“I’m going to start charging people every time they ask me if I’m okay,” Shawn says gently. “So you have to consider if you’re willing to pay the toll any time you’re tempted to ask the question.”  
  
He removes his hand and Lassie blinks again before asking, “How much would it cost?”  
  
“For you, I might come up with a special rate. Hey,” he says, holding up his new phone, “Look what I have.”  
  
“Thank god. I didn’t want to have to go through Guster every time I wanted to talk to you.”  
  
Shawn shrugs. “Why not? That way, you two could talk about me all you want.” Huh. He hadn’t actually meant to say that, he thinks, as Lassiter’s eyes widen.  
  
“I knew you were listening behind the door!” he says, then scrambles to add “And I’m sorry, but it’s only because –”  
  
“I know, I know,” Shawn interrupts. “Forget it, I didn’t mean to bring it up. I’m gonna go watch some TV. I think there’s a _Mythbusters_ marathon on.”  
  
“Shawn—”  
  
“Lassiter, I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to watch some TV, okay?  
  
Lassiter sighs in defeat and goes back to his case file. Two days, Shawn thinks. That’s all it’s taken for Lassie to get frustrated with his moodiness, and for him to get annoyed with Lassie’s overprotectiveness. Doomed, he concedes sadly, and settles down to watch some _Mythbusters_.  
  



	4. Chapter 4

On Monday, Lassiter and Gus are both back at work and Shawn thinks maybe it’s time he seriously got to work too. He calls to have the power and water turned back on at his dad’s house, then, not giving himself time to think about it, calls Adam Hornstock’s number and makes arrangements for lunch. Even though all he’s done so far is make phone calls, he still feels like he’s accomplished some things this morning, and that he probably deserves a delicious caffeinated beverage as a reward.   
  
He didn’t sleep much the night before. Or really at all, if he’s being honest with himself.  He had watched TV, rearranged all the books on Lassiter’s bookcase by color, played twenty-seven games of spider solitaire on Lassie’s laptop, stared at Lassiter sleeping for half an hour to see if he could wake him with the power of his mind (he couldn’t), found the latest edition of Lassiter’s crap list in his desk (which included one of the desk sergeants from the station, PETA, and Ryan Seacrest. Shawn added Chad Michael Murray to the list, just because) and finally broke down and read the case file Lassie had been working on. He didn’t know who the killer was based on what he had read, but if he had still been a detective, he thought he would probably have some pretty good leads to start with.   
  
But he’s not a detective anymore.  
  
He’s mentally composing an ode capturing his love for the fries quatro queso dos fritos (Oh queso! Oh fritos! Is all he has so far) and not paying attention to where he’s going when he bumps into someone coming out of the café where he’s stopped to get a triple mocha with extra whipped cream.  
  
“Sorry!” he starts to say, then stops short when he sees who’s staring up at him in shock.  
  
It’s Juliet.  
  
“Shawn!” she gasps, and then she has her arms wrapped around him in an almost painfully tight grip.  
  
“Jules,” he whispers, breathing in the scent of her shampoo, stunned by the fact that she’s hugging him instead of say, slugging him.  
  
“Shawn, I’ve been so worried about you!” she says, and when she steps back to look at him, he can see unshed tears in her eyes. “Where have you been?”  
  
“Oh, you know,” he says weakly “here and there. Sort of a cross-country road trip. I needed…I thought it would be for the best if I got away for a little while.”  
  
Juliet looks down “I’m so sorry, Shawn.”  
  
Shawn stares at her, flabbergasted. “Sorry for what, Jules? You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
“Your father had just died! I should have—”  
  
“Should have what? Immediately gotten over how I’d been lying to you for years?” Shawn asks dryly. “Come on Jules, I deserved to have you dump me. I would have dumped me too.”  
  
“Still,” she says unhappily, “my timing could have been better.”  
  
Shawn shrugs. “That’s just the way it played out. I knew when I told you that I was pretty much putting the kibosh on our relationship.”  
  
She nods sadly. “So, you’re back in town for good?”  
  
“I don’t know about for good, but for now, anyway. I need to figure out what to do with the house. Hey,” he says, attempting to change the subject. “I heard about your new job! Congratulations! You’re like Samuel Gerard and Raylan Givens now, a total badass.”  
  
“Thanks! It’s been really challenging, but also amazing. Who told you? Have you been down to the station?”  
  
Too late, Shawn realizes he’s stepped into dangerous territory. “Noooo” he says. “Actually, Lassie told me.”  
  
Juliet raises her eyebrows. “You’ve been to see Carlton? You’re very brave, Shawn.”  
  
Oh, Shawn knows he should tell her. He knows it’s the right thing to do. But he hates upsetting people. He likes making people laugh, he likes making <i>Jules</i> laugh, and he can’t picture her laughing if he tells her that he and Lassie are totally rockin’ each others worlds on a semi-nightly basis.   
  
Well, she might laugh out of disbelief, but after that he’s afraid she might not see any humor in the situation.  
  
So instead of telling her, he just grins and says “Aww, you know Lassie. He’s all bark and no bite.”  
  
Juliet winces. “Never let him hear you say that,” she advises.   
  
Her phone rings and she glances at the display, then gives him an apologetic look. “Work. I have to go. But hey, I’m glad I ran into you Shawn. I’m glad to know that you’re doing okay.”  
  
She hugs him again, a little awkwardly this time, and Shawn whispers into her hair “It was really good to see you, Jules. Be careful out there, okay?”  
  
She gives him a little wave as she drives off, and after she’s out of sight, Shawn drops into a chair at one of the little outdoor tables.  That had gone better than he thought it might, but he knows that she’s going to be pissed when she finds out the truth about him and Lassie and realizes that he lied to her AGAIN. Merely a lie of omission, maybe, but still. He has no doubt that she will find out; Lassiter is very nearly incapable of deception and wouldn’t be interested in deceiving Juliet even if he could.   
  
Unlike Shawn of course, who deceived her for years, and kept right on deceiving her after they were dating, sleeping together, and even flirting with the idea of moving in with each other. The night he told her the truth – the night before Henry’s funeral, when he was still in a daze and it had all come pouring out as he tried to explain to her all the friction in his relationship with his dad – was one of the worst nights of his life. Well, to be fair, that entire week had won the prize for worst week ever before he even thought about opening up to Juliet, eclipsing his parent’s divorce and every single one of his legendary fights with Henry, but that night in particular had been horrible, because he had seen how much it hurt Jules to know that she had been lied to, and he had known that he had no one to blame for that except himself.  
  
The instant after he had told her the truth, when he had seen the betrayal on her face, he had remembered all the times she had looked at him with amazement when he solved a case, and affection when he teased her, and love when they lay in bed together, and he knew that he had lost all of that forever, and worst of all, that he deserved to lose it.  
  
He rubs a hand over his face, willing the memories away. He still has to meet Adam for lunch, and was planning after that to go back out to the house and make sure everything was working again, so that he could start cleaning up and packing things away in earnest.  
  
Trying to be a responsible adult sucks. He’s starting to remember why he avoided it for so long.  
  
At least seeing Adam again doesn’t come with any unpleasant or uncomfortable associations.  Shawn takes in his well-pressed suit, his shiny shoes, his stylish tie, and his neat haircut and grins.   
  
“Dude, being a partner agrees with you!”  
  
“Shawn, hi!” and for all of his professional polish he still looks as eager to please as a puppy dog. “I was so happy to hear you were back in town,” he says as they sit down at the table in the little sandwich shop. “How are you?”  
  
“I’m great!” Spying the wedding ring on Adam’s finger, he steers the conversation away from himself. “What the hell, man? How long have you been married?”  
  
“Almost three years now. She’s a lawyer too.”  
  
They make small talk over lunch, then Adam pulls a file out of his briefcase.   
  
“I was really sorry to hear about Henry, Shawn. I liked him a lot.”  
  
“Thanks,” Shawn says awkwardly. “Gus said that he made a will? I mean, we had talked about it before. Dad believed in being prepared. He told me the house would be mine, so I’ve been assuming it is. You’re not going to tell me that he really left it to a band of traveling mimes or anything, are you?”  
  
“Nah, the house is yours. He left bequests to the Policeman’s Widows and Orphans fund and the local homeless shelter, which have already been distributed. There is also a savings account with some money. I mean, it’s not buy your own island kind of money, but it might provide a bit of a cushion for a while.”  
  
Shawn takes the printout that Adam hands him and raises his eyebrows at the number. What Adam considers a “bit of a cushion” actually looks like a lot more than he expected. Enough at least to help Lassie pay off the credit card bills he had accrued from hotels and restaurants around the South, bills he had seen when he had been snooping around during his sleepless night, and still have more money than he’s accustomed to left over.   
  
“The house and all of its contents are yours, as is the truck. If you want to sell the house, I can get together a list of local real estate agents that my firm recommends.”  
  
“Yeah,” Shawn says distractedly, still thinking about money. “That would be great, thanks.”  
  
“Hey Shawn, are you working on anything right now?”  
  
“No. We closed Psych down, and I’m currently living in blissful unemployment.”  
  
“I was just thinking,” Adam sounds nervous now, more like the Adam Hornstock that Shawn remembers “it seemed like a stroke of luck that you called this week. I’m starting a big trial on Wednesday, and I was wondering if you might be interested in consulting during the jury selection. This case means a lot to the firm, and I’d like to make sure all my bases are covered. I’ve never met anyone else who was as good at reading a jury as you.”  
  
“What kind of case is it?”  
  
“It’s a civil case involving unsafe working conditions at a local construction company.”  
Shawn thinks for a moment. Not a murder, or a mystery at all. A chance to do something that would be distracting and give him a chance to practice his observation skills.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, “I would like that.”  
  
Adam’s face lights up with a grin. “Awesome! It’s going to be great working with you again.”   
He reaches into his briefcase and pulls out another file. “I brought all the information, just in case you said yes. I’ll call you tomorrow and answer any questions, but I’ve got a meeting with the other partners in fifteen minutes, so I need to run.”  
  
After Adam leaves, Shawn goes to the house again, staying only long enough to make sure the lights are working. As stressful as being here with Gus the day before had been, it was still better than being in the house alone. With no distractions, he’s overwhelmed by memories. He resolves not to come back until Lassiter or Gus can come with him.  
  
As he’s leaving, he realizes that Henry’s truck isn’t in the driveway and makes a note to ask Lassie if he knows where it is.   
  
He calls Gus to see if he might be able to sneak out of work early, but his call goes straight to voicemail, so he heads back to the condo, feeling at loose ends. He considers taking a nap, probably SHOULD take a nap since he didn’t sleep the night before, but he feels wired. He looks over the file Hornstock gave him, committing the pertinent facts of the case to memory, then watches TV until Lassiter comes home.  
  
“Hi honey,” he says facetiously as Lassie comes in. “Did you have a good day at work?”   
  
Lassiter drops his briefcase and wisely chooses to ignore Shawn’s weak Donna Reed imitation.  
“I’m going to change clothes, and then we can grab some dinner if you want.”  
  
“Sounds good,” Shawn says, as Lassie disappears into the bedroom. “I have stuff to tell you,” he adds, thinking of Jules and Hornstock and money.  
  
There’s a knocking at the door, and Lassiter is still in the bedroom, so Shawn shrugs and goes to see who it could be. The person on the other side is already talking as he opens the door.   
  
“I’m really sorry to stop by without calling, but…Shawn? What are you doing here?”  
  
“Jules! Um, what a surprise.”  
  
Shawn briefly entertains a fantasy in which he manages to convince Jules that he and Lassie are wacky platonic roommates, like Laverne and Shirley or Joey and Chandler. Not that Shawn believes that either of those pairs was platonic, of course, but that’s beside the point.  
Unfortunately, Jules is smart and unlikely to believe any crazy <i>Three’s Company</i> style misunderstanding plots he can dream up on the fly.   
  
Juliet is blinking up at him in confusion. “Oh god, Shawn, Lassiter’s here isn’t he? You didn’t break into his apartment, did you?”  
  
Shawn feels like he should probably be insulted by that, but, well, it wouldn’t be the first time he had ever broken into Lassie’s place. The man had good taste in peanut butter, and an excellent cable package.   
  
“No Jules,” he says reassuringly, “Lassie’s here. Come on in.”  
  
She comes in, but still looks puzzled. He can see her taking in the fact that he’s not wearing shoes, that he’s holding a half empty beer bottle, and frowns. “Is Carlton letting you stay here? Why aren’t you staying with Gus?”  
  
“Spencer, would it kill you to pick up a towel occasionally?” Lassiter is grumbling as he comes back into the room, stopping dead as he sees that they have a visitor. “O’Hara! What are you doing here?”  
  
“I’m sorry Carlton, I should have called. I thought I would see if you had plans for dinner. I didn’t realize…” she trails off uncertainly.   
  
“Jules and I ran into each other this morning,” Shawn says, looking at Lassie because his mild panic is easier to face than Juliet’s growing awareness. “I told her that I had seen you, so she’s here to find out what you know about where I’ve been.”  
  
“It’s not always all about you, Shawn!” Juliet snaps. “But…yes. That’s essentially right. What’s going on here, guys?”  
  
“O’Hara, maybe you should sit down. Would you like a drink?”  
  
“No, thank you. I think I’m a little confused. Is Shawn staying with you, Carlton? And you haven’t killed him yet?”  
  
Shawn goes to where Lassie keeps the Scotch and pours a glass for Lassiter, who definitely needs it, and for Juliet, who he thinks is probably going to need it in a few minutes.   
  
Poor Lassie looks like a deer caught in the headlights; his typical brusqueness seems to have abandoned him when it comes to dealing with this particular situation, so Shawn figures that it’s up to him to get the ball rolling, even though all of his instincts are rebelling against the idea of telling Jules a truth that will likely upset her when it would be so much easier to tell her a lie that would make her happy.  
  
“I wasn’t doing so hot after I left town,” he tells her, navigating her onto the sofa and sitting in the chair across from her. “I traveled all over the place, and took a lot of odd jobs, which was fine, but I was also drinking way too much and having a hard time coping with things. I ended up in Atlanta, where I ran into Declan Rand, who I guess was there on business. To be honest, I don’t remember that much about seeing him. I know I was a total asshole to him, tried to pick a fight with him, but that’s all I remember.”  
  
Lassiter is staring at Shawn curiously. “Declan didn’t tell me that,” he says. “All he said was that you looked like hell, and that you’d obviously been drinking a lot.”  
  
“Man,” Shawn says, disgusted, “that guy is too nice to be real. He secretly has to be a serial killer or something.”  
  
“So wait,” Juliet says, “Declan called you, Carlton?”  
  
Lassiter sits down beside her. “Yeah. He was worried about Shawn, and he didn’t have Guster’s number, and he thought calling you might be awkward, so he called me.”  
  
“So your vacation, the trip to Georgia…”  
  
“Well, I did do a lot of sightseeing. That was true. But the reason I went was to find Shawn.”  
  
“But WHY? I mean, no offense Shawn, but Carlton has spent years wishing you would disappear. And Shawn, you’ve spent years doing your best to irritate and annoy him. You two don’t even like each other!”  
  
Shawn scratches his head and looks at the floor. “Well Jules, that’s the thing. Do you remember that night we got tipsy on pina coladas and I told you that I was kind of bisexual?”  
  
“Of course, but what…” she stops, looks from Shawn to Lassiter, then back to Shawn again.   
  
“No. No way! Is this some kind of joke?”  
  
“No joke,” Lassiter says, a little more grimly than Shawn thinks is necessary.   
  
“Oh my god,” Juliet says, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “This explains so much.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lassiter asks, exasperated.  
  
“All the touching, and picking at each other, and competitiveness…you were flirting with each other! I can’t believe I didn’t see it. How blind could I be?”  
  
She gets up and paces across the room as Shawn and Lassiter exchange worried looks.  
  
“When did this start?” she asks.  
  
“Not until Atlanta. You know I would never have cheated on you, Jules.”  
  
She turns to him, her mouth turned down in an unhappy line. “How do I know that, Shawn? You lied to me every day we were together.”  
  
Shawn blanches and looks at the floor. It’s not like he has an argument to refute her.   
  
“There was nothing to start until Atlanta,” Lassiter says firmly, standing up to move closer to Juliet. “I didn’t know this was something I even wanted until…until Shawn left. I know you have good reason to not trust him, but I hope you still trust me, and that you can find a way to be okay with this. I hope you know how much I value our friendship.”  
  
Juliet takes a deep breath, looking from Shawn to Lassiter.   
  
“I do trust you, but I’m going to need a little time here, Carlton. This is all just a little weird, my former boyfriend with my former partner, plus there’s the time you and I almost slept together. It’s a lot to get used to.”  
  
“Jules, I know it’s strange and awkward, but…wait. What?”  
  
“I think I need to leave,” Juliet says, ignoring him. “I’ll call you, Carlton. Just give me some time.”  
  
“Juliet!” Lassiter says imploringly, but she’s already out the door. He drops back onto the sofa and leans his head back in defeat.  
  
Shawn moves to sit beside him companionably. “That could have gone worse.”  
  
“Could it have?” Lassie sounds a little despondent.  
  
“She didn’t draw her weapon,” Shawn points out. “Nothing was thrown and nobody cried. She even said she would call you later. I count it as a win.”  
  
“I think your optimism is misplaced,” Lassiter says dryly, “but thanks anyway.”  
  
“So, you and she almost slept together, huh?”  
  
Lassiter tilts his head so that he’s facing Shawn. “It happened after you left, and is none of your business.”  
  
“Nooo, I’m not letting you off that easy. I’m going to need details. If you don’t tell me, I’m just going to imagine something probably way dirtier than what actually happened.”  
  
“Fine. Imagine away.”  
  
Shawn gets a faraway, dreamy expression on his face. “It was late at night at the station. Everyone was gone except for you and Jules and Officer Muskowitz at the front desk. As you worked well into the wee hours, you couldn’t help but notice the fair Juliet’s shiny hair and breast-shaped breasts.”  
  
“Oh god, please stop,” Lassiter moans in horror, covering his eyes with one hand like he can block out Shawn’s words that way.  
  
When Shawn continues, it’s in a gruff imitation of Lassiter’s voice. “’O’Hara,’ you said, ‘I’ve always admired the way you collate and file your paperwork, and the way you handle your gun gives a man ideas’.” He switches to his high-pitched girl voice for Juliet’s dialogue. “’Oh Carlton, I’ve waited so long for you to notice! Take me, take me here on your desk you big strong hunk of a detective! Oh yes, just like that you beast!’”  
  
“We were drunk and we made out on her sofa!” Lassiter interrupts hastily. “Are you happy now?”  
  
“I couldn’t be happier,” Shawn assures him, pleased to see that Lassie looks more amused than pissed off, and definitely more relaxed than he had been after Jules left.   
  
“Like we would ever do that at the station,” Lassiter mutters.  
  
“So you were on a sofa, like this one, huh?” Shawn asks, patting the cushions beside him. “Tell me more! I need details. Were you lying down or sitting up? Oooh, or maybe something like this?” he asks, and in one fluid move he’s straddling Lassiter, delighted because he can tell from the expression on Lassie’s face that he guessed right.   
  
“Spencer, I’m not in the—”  
  
“Not in the mood?” Shawn interrupts. He can already feel Lassiter starting to get hard underneath him. “Please. You’re so in the mood.”  
  
Lassiter lets out a frustrated breath. “Shawn, what are you doing?” he asks softly.   
  
“I think that should be obvious, Lassiekins! I’m…” he trails off as Lassiter looks at him seriously, and ugh, it’s a little scary how good Lassiter has gotten at reading him.  
    
“I’m trying to distract you,” he admits. “I’m trying to distract myself. Seeing Jules this morning threw me for a loop, but I thought I was over it. Having her come here tonight, though…she’s right,” he says, looking away, because he doesn’t want to see Lassiter’s expression as he says this, “She shouldn’t trust me. You shouldn’t either. I’m just a fuck-up, Lassie.”  
  
He thinks he should get up and leave; he hates self-pity, and he knows Lassiter must too, but Lassie’s hands are tight on his hips now, preventing him from getting up.  
  
“Don’t be an idiot, Spencer,” he snaps, and when Shawn looks at him again, irritation is plain on his face.   
  
“Sorry,” Shawn says, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably, “Let me go and I’ll take my pity party somewhere else.”  
  
“Don’t be an idiot,” Lassiter repeats, gently this time, moving one hand up to cup the back of Shawn’s head and pull him down for a kiss, and oh, it’s so <i>good</i>. Lassiter is always so serious and focused, qualities that Shawn had never before considered to being integral to kissing, but as it turns out, he was mistaken; the intensity that Lassiter brings to the act makes it a whole new kind of fun.   
  
He grinds down on Lassiter’s lap, moaning at the friction, and starts pulling at the buttons of Lassie’s shirt only to find himself flat on his back as Lassiter flips them around so that they’re stretched out on the sofa with Lassiter on top. He’s not sure what this is; pity sex or comfort sex or just good old-fashioned “I’m horny, let’s have sex” sex, but he figures that it probably doesn’t matter. He’s not going to look a gift fuck in the mouth.   
  
“You’re the best cheerer-upper _ever_ ,” Shawn gasps, as Lassie bites at his neck and tugs at the fly of Shawn’s jeans.   
  
“I try,” Lassiter says modestly, as he pushes Shawn’s jeans and boxers down and wraps his hand around Shawn’s cock.  
  
“Oh god,” Shawn breathes out. Before all of this, when the idea of him and Lassiter together was nothing more than an idle daydream, this had been one of his most consistent fantasies, Lassie’s big, graceful hands jerking him off. The reality is way hotter than the fantasy. He digs his fingers into Lassie’s biceps and bites his lip to keep from babbling declarations of eternal love; he’s not sure Lassiter is ready for that from him yet, or sure that he’s ready to leave himself that naked, metaphorically speaking. He’s pretty good with literal nakedness, however.  
  
Lassiter removes his hand and Shawn is about to lodge a protest, but the words die on his lips as - <i>sweet holy pineapples</i> \- Lassiter’s mouth descends on him, and Shawn has to turn his head because he can’t bear to watch, torn between the twin desires of wanting to come and wanting to live in this moment forever. His whole world seems to center on Lassie’s mouth, hot and wet, his tongue swiping across the head of Shawn’s cock while his hand works the base, then slips lower to fondle his balls. Shawn wants to thrust up, but Lassiter’s other hand is on his hip, keeping him firmly pinned down. When Lassiter slides his fingers back to tease at Shawn’s opening, he finally loses it.  
  
When he floats back down to earth a few minutes later, he finds that Lassiter is resting his head on Shawn’s stomach but is starting to shift around uncomfortably.  
  
“This couch isn’t big enough for both of us,” he mutters.   
  
“Come ‘ere,” Shawn says, pulling at Lassiter’s arm to urge him up so that they’re face to face. He feels blissfully drained, like Lassie has sucked all the negative feelings out of him and left him an empty shell, waiting to be filled up with something new.   
  
Man, orgasms make him sort of goofy.   
  
He kisses Lassie, slow and warm, licking into Lassiter’s mouth and tasting himself, which should maybe be disgusting (he and Gus had once had a drunken argument about this very thing, kissing after oral sex; Gus is anti while Shawn is very, very pro. After Gus had sobered up, he refused to acknowledge that the conversation had ever happened), but he thinks it’s dirty in the best possible way. From the way Lassiter is moaning against his mouth, he seems to agree.   
  
He can feel Lassiter’s erection rock hard against his thigh, and he reaches down for Lassie’s zipper, pulling him free of his pants and shorts and rubbing his palm across the tip so that his hand is slick with precome, then strokes his hand down, then up again. Lassiter buries his face against Shawn’s shoulder, his breath hot even through Shawn’s shirt. This is almost better than coming himself, Shawn thinks, making Lassie lose control like this.   
  
Afterwards, Shawn thinks he should get up and find something to clean them up with; besides, Lassiter’s right and the couch really is too small for both of them, but despite the fact that he’s being squished into the back of the couch and his arm is starting to go numb from the angle it’s trapped at between their bodies, he still feels like a limp noodle, and while Lassie is heavy, Shawn loves the feeling of being covered by him.  After a few minutes though, Lassie sits up, reaching for a box of tissues on the coffee table to clean up with and fixing his clothes.   
  
Shawn elects to stay where he is, though he does reach down to pull his jeans back up, because he wants to say something serious and he can’t do that while he’s half naked.   
  
“I’m sorry I’ve screwed things up between you and Jules.”  
  
Lassiter leans back, pulling Shawn’s legs across his lap. “Don’t worry about it. I got over it when I found out you and she were dating, and she’ll get over it too. It probably helps that we’re not working together anymore.”  
  
“Jeez, I had forgotten that I caused a rift between the two of you before. Why do you like me again?”  
  
Lassiter just pats him on the calf. “Do you want something to eat?”  
  
“Maybe later.  Hey, I almost forgot to tell you. I had lunch with Adam Hornstock today. He asked me to do some consulting work for him later this week. And he gave me a copy of Henry’s will. There’s a savings account with some money. I was thinking you could take some of it to pay off those credit card bills we racked up staying at all those hotels.”  
  
Unbelievably, Lassiter is scowling at him. “I can pay my own bills,” he says stiffly.  
  
“Um, I know you can, but you wouldn’t have those particular bills if it weren’t for me. Dude, are we going to fight about me trying to <i>give</i> you money? Usually the fights I have over money are because I sto—I mean, borrowed Gus’s credit card and he wants me to pay him back. Which reminds me, I should probably give some of this money to Gus.”  
  
“It’s your money, you can do whatever you want with it. I’m hungry, I’m going to get something to eat.”  
  
He gets up and goes to the kitchen. After a moment of trying to figure out what the hell just happened, Shawn follows him.  
  
“I’m confused. I thought you’d be happy about this, not mad.”  
  
Lassiter pauses at the refrigerator, his back to Shawn. “I’m not mad,” he says finally. “I just…I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything. I’m the one who decided to go looking for you in the first place, and I’m the one who took an extra week off to keep staying in hotels. I knew what I was doing.”  
  
“Not owe you anything? Lassie, I owe you everything,” Shawn is behind him now, slipping his arms around Lassie’s waist and resting his head on his back. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be on job number 75 by now at least, that is, if I weren’t in a drunken stupor somewhere.”  
  
“If it weren’t for me,” Lassiter points out, “you wouldn’t have come back to Santa Barbara.”  
“And that’s a bad thing?”  
  
“It is if you’re unhappy.”  
  
Shawn moves so that he’s between Lassiter and the refrigerator, tilts his head up so that he can look Lassie in the eye. “I’m not going to lie to you. It’s been hard being back here. But I was unhappy before you found me. At least here I have you and Gus.”   
  
All this earnestness is making him uncomfortable, so Shawn clears his throat and moves away. “Speaking of Gus, I should call him and see if he wants to go to the mall with me. I need something new to wear if I’m going to work for Hornstock this week.”  
  
Lassiter sighs and scratches his head, clearly wanting to talk about this more but unwilling to force the conversation. “Yeah. So tell me again what you’re doing for Hornstock?”  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Shawn manages to get in a couple of hours worth of sleep that night, which is better than the night before, but at 3:15 in the morning he finds himself awake again, wandering around the condo looking for something to do. The only thing he can find to watch on TV is infomercials, so he finds out about the world’s best pillow and then about a revolutionary pilates system. He experimentally tries a few of the pilates moves, but stops after there’s an uncomfortable twinge in his back.  
  
He finds six of the eight guns that Lassiter has hidden around the place (the other two are probably in the bedroom, and he doesn’t want to wake Lassie up), which he figures will come in handy if they’re ever under siege from zombies or an opposing army. One night, in a hotel in Tennessee, Lassie had asked him if the guns in the apartment would bother him, since Henry had been shot, but the truth is that while Shawn doesn’t particularly care for guns (despite being an excellent shot), he isn’t scared of them either, having been around them his entire life. Even the way Henry had died hadn’t changed that; he was more afraid of the kind of person who could shoot a former friend point blank in the chest than he was of the metal and plastic contraption that carried the bullet.  
  
He tries reading an Ed McBain novel that he had found amid the history and criminology books on Lassie’s bookcase the night before, but his mind is too scattered for it to hold his attention, so instead he plays Angry Birds on his phone for an hour.  
  
When he hears the alarm clock blaring, he goes to the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee, then goes to the bedroom to watch Lassie wake up.  
  
“Good morning, sunshine!” he says perkily, as Lassie yawns and rubs his eyes and looks at Shawn blearily.  
  
“How long have you been awake?” he asks.  
  
“Just for a little while,” Shawn says noncommittally. “Hey, do you want some breakfast? I could make pancakes or omelets or waffles or –”  
  
“Just toast and coffee, please. Are you sure you got enough sleep? You look tired.”  
  
“Huh. With flattery like that, someone’s not getting any early morning nookie.”  
  
“I wasn’t trying to…I don’t have time for…I need to take a shower.” He flees to the bathroom, leaving Shawn amused at how he’s still able to occasionally fluster Lassie when his defenses are down.  
  
Before Lassiter leaves for work, Shawn remembers to ask him if he knows where Henry’s truck is.  
  
“Possibly in the impound lot. Or it could still be where he last parked it.”  
  
“At Jerry Carp’s house.”  
  
“Yeah.  I’ll check on it today and let you know.” He leans forward and gives Shawn a quick kiss. “I have to go. I’ll call you later.”  
  
After Lassiter leaves, Shawn calls Gus to see if he could leave work early and go to the mall with him to shop for clothes that he can wear to court for the rest of the week. Gus says he has meetings all afternoon, but he could go this morning, so an hour later Shawn is in the Blueberry, headed for the mall.  
  
“What happened to all of your old clothes?”  
  
“I left them at Mee Mee’s, so I guess when the new owners took over they probably threw them out or gave them away.”  
  
“Shawn, you should have told me to take care of that. I could have –”  
  
“You were busy taking care of everything else. It doesn’t matter, this way I get a shiny new wardrobe and I even have the money to pay for it.” He tells Gus about the lunch with Hornstock, his sudden windfall and temporary job, all of which makes Gus happy because of the stability those things signify, even while a part of Shawn starts to get antsy as he realizes that he’s starting to take on responsibilities again.  
  
At the mall, he introduces himself and Gus as Black and Tan, retired supermodels, to the pretty salesclerk and scores her phone number for Gus, which makes him feel a little more normal.  
  
Later, after he’s bought some clothes and he and Gus are sucking down Orange Julius’s and checking out the toy store, Lassiter calls and tells him that Henry’s truck is in the impound lot, and that he’s arranged to have it released to Shawn.  
  
“What are you going to do with it?” Gus asks him.  
  
“Sell it, give it away, I don’t know. I sure as hell don’t want it. But it will come in handy while we’re packing up the house.”  
  
When it’s time for Gus to go to work, he drops Shawn off at the lot to pick up the truck. Shawn hasn’t thought of the truck as being particularly triggery for his memories; sure, his dad loved the damn thing, but compared to the house, it was small potatoes, so taking possession of it feels like something useful he can do without stepping into a minefield.  
  
What he hadn’t counted on was the fact that Henry had gone straight to Jerry Carp’s house after leaving the police station, and the box of items that he had cleaned off of his desk is still sitting in the passenger seat.  
  
He hadn’t seen everything that Henry packed into the box, but without opening it he knows that his dad’s hat is right on top. He remembers the conversation they had while he watched Henry pack that box, the last conversation they ever had. He opens it, pulls out the hat, thinks about himself as a kid wearing it around the house, idolizing his father, the hero.  
  
Underneath the hat is a picture of Henry with Lou, Jack, and Jerry. His father, the goddamned idiot who couldn’t see that he was being lied to by his best friends, until finally, he was murdered by one of them.  
  
He can recall vividly everything about the day Henry died, the way he remembers everything, but in this case he can’t seem to manage the memories in a way that will allow him to cope with them.  
  
He had arrived at Jerry Carp’s house just in time to hear the gunshot, had run around the corner of the house and seen Henry on the ground, Carp standing over him. When Carp saw him, he started to run, but Shawn wasn’t even looking at him. All he could see was Henry crumpled on the beach, blood spreading across the front of his shirt at a sickeningly fast pace.  
  
He had dropped to his knees and pressed his hands to the wound, trying in vain to stop the bleeding, the warm, slippery blood seeping through his fingers and coating his hands. His dad had still been alive when he got there; he had blinked up at Shawn, his eyes wide with shock, and his mouth had formed Shawn’s name but no sound emerged. A small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, and Shawn was incapable of doing anything about it except staring in dumb horror. Some distant part of his mind was insisting that he should call 911, but he couldn’t move his hands to reach for his phone.  
  
Suddenly, Juliet had been there beside him. Later, she told him that Buzz had found her and Lassiter and told them how Shawn had gone running out of the station, and they had followed him to Carp’s house. She had been the one to call for an ambulance, but even as she did so, Shawn had already known that it was too late. Still, he couldn’t move his hands, just in case.  
  
Things had happened fast after that. An ambulance had come, and cops, a dozen of them swarming over the scene.  Jules had sat with her arm around him, gently stroking his back, until Lassiter had come over and she stood and talked with him for a minute, then came back to Shawn and said “I’ll be right back, okay? Carlton’s going to stay with you for a minute.”  
  
Shawn had just nodded, and she had pulled out her phone as she walked away, as Lassiter crouched down on the ground beside him. He had looked at Henry’s still, blood-soaked body and closed his eyes briefly, then turned to Shawn and said softly “We need to get out of the way and let the crime scene guys do their job, okay?” and he could hear his dad lecturing him on the importance of evidence collection and protocol, and there was a <i>murder</i> here, he might be disturbing the scene just by kneeling here, but …  
  
“I can’t leave,” he had whispered. “He needs me to stop the bleeding.” Lassiter had leaned forward and cupped Shawn’s face, tilting it towards him so that Shawn was looking into Lassie’s sad, worried blue eyes.  
  
“Shawn, I’m so sorry, but it’s too late. There’s nothing else you can do. You need to come with me now. Can you do that?”  
  
Suddenly feeling exhausted, Shawn had nodded, and for the briefest moment he had felt Lassiter’s hand brush against his hair, then Lassie had taken him by the elbow and helped him stand – his legs had gone to sleep from kneeling for so long – and led him up towards Jerry Carp’s house. It wasn’t until much later that Shawn realized that Lassiter had led him away so that he wouldn’t see Henry being put in a body bag, and he’s eternally grateful for that.  
  
There were already police inside the house, searching the place, though for what, Shawn didn’t know. He recognized some of the officers from the station, watching him solemnly and stepping aside as Lassiter led him silently down a hall, until he found a bathroom.    
  
“You need to get cleaned up,” Lassiter had said, turning on the taps at the sink and guiding his hands under it. Shawn had watched his dad’s blood disappearing down the drain for a few minutes, and then turned to the toilet and been suddenly, violently sick. Lassiter had stayed with him, rubbing a hand across his shoulders then shouting into the hallway for someone to bring him a bottle of water from the kitchen right goddamn now.  
  
After he had finished throwing up, Shawn had turned back to the sink, suddenly frantic to have the blood off of his hands. His shirt was covered in it too, and his jeans, but he couldn’t do anything about that yet, so he focused on his hands. Lassiter had watched him until his hands were clean, then he had turned the taps off and handed him the bottle of water that had been brought by one of the uniforms.  
  
Shawn took a long drink of water, then asked “Did you get him?”  
  
“Yeah. We got him.”  
  
“Good,” Shawn said. He realized he was tearing the label off the water bottle and dropping the pieces onto the floor and forced himself to stop. “Lassie? I don’t know what to do next.”  
  
“Come on. We’ll go find O’Hara and she can take you home.”  
  
Outside, Juliet had come rushing up to them. From her red-rimmed eyes Shawn could tell that she had been crying, but she had herself under control now. “There you are! I didn’t know where you two had gone. Shawn, I called Gus. He’s on his way.”  
  
Shawn had just barely been listening to her though, because in the back of a police car a few feet away he could see Jerry Carp, and he had been struck hard by a kind of rage he had never felt before.  The idea hit him all at once that he could do to Carp what Carp had done to his dad. Getting his hands on a weapon right now would be easy. Lassiter is closest to him, and he knows he could have the gun in his hands before Lassie knew what he was doing, but Lassiter is bigger and stronger than him and paranoid enough that he would react quickly.  
  
Jules would be easier. She’s close now too, and she would never expect Shawn to overpower her for her weapon. From where he was standing he had a clean shot, but the police car had bulletproof windows so he would need to get to the car.  
  
He was working out in his mind how he could do it when he heard a familiar voice saying his name and suddenly Gus was hugging him, and when he had looked up again, the car carrying Carp was driving away.  
  
Looking now at the picture of his dad with his former friends, the horror of that day feels nearly as fresh as it had at the time, the memory of it as clear as if it had just happened.  
  
He needs a drink.  
  
The next few hours pass in a blur, which is exactly how he wants it. He goes to a bar and gets drunk, fast. Alcohol doesn’t exactly help him forget, but it does make everything softer and fuzzier around the edges, and the company he finds in the bar provides a welcome distraction. He knows it’s not exactly a healthy coping technique, but fuck it.  
  
It’s hours later when the bartender asks him for his keys and his phone. He hands them over cheerfully because he’s reached a stage in which he’s agreeable to anything, including the impromptu karaoke that his newfound bar friends have set up. He’s halfway through an epic version of “Hungry Like the Wolf” when he sees Gus come through the door.  
  
“Gussy!” he shouts in delight, interrupting his own song. He hands off the microphone to the pretty girl who’s been flirting with him all night and goes over to hug Gus, because he loves him sooo much.  
  
Gus looks equal parts worried and annoyed. “I’ve told you not to call me that,” he snaps, then softens and asks “Shawn, are you all right? What are you doing here?”  
  
“Silly Gussy, I was singing Duran Duran, didn’t you hear me? It was _awesome_. Come on, we should pick something to do together!”  
  
“Shawn, did something happen? Did you…did you have a fight with Carlton or something?”  
  
“No, of course not! I haven’t seen Lassie since this morning. Hey, do you think he would come and sing some karaoke with us? I wanna hear him do something by Prince. Do you think he knows the words to “Darling Nikki”?”  
  
Gus looks vaguely horrified. “If he does, I don’t want to know about it. Come on Shawn, let’s go. You’ve had enough.”  
  
Gus goes to the bartender and collects Shawn’s keys and phone, then steers Shawn towards the door. Once they’re in the Blueberry, he asks again “What happened?”  
  
“What makes you think something happened? Can’t I have a few drinks and channel my inner Simon Le Bon?” He sings a few bars of “Rio” to make his point.  
  
“Yeah, you can, but that’s not what happened. Come on Shawn, you know you can tell me anything.”  
  
Shawn rests his head against the window of the car, feeling the cool glass against his cheek. Now that he’s not distracted by the people and the music he’s starting to feel sad again, but he doesn’t want to think about what made him get drunk today in the first place, and he also doesn’t want to worry Gus.  
  
“Everything’s fine,” he says firmly. “I was bored and I had a little bit too much to drink. How did you know where to find me?”  
  
“The bartender called me. She said that I was the first person on your contacts list and that I should come and pick up my friend because he had been drinking all afternoon and was completely blasted.”  
  
Oh, right. If Shawn’s thought processes hadn’t been slowed down by the alcohol he would have already known that. He bounces a little in his seat, trying to recapture the euphoria he had felt earlier.  
  
“We should go somewhere else! The night’s still young, Gus!”  
  
“The night is officially middle-aged, Shawn, and I have to work tomorrow. So do you, for that matter. The only place I’m taking you is to Lassiter’s.”  
  
Shawn gets that warm, Lassie-related feeling in his chest. “Okay. Maybe we can play with his handcuffs.”  
  
“I’m just going to assume that the ‘we’ in that sentence means you and Lassiter, not you and me.”  
  
“Your loss.” He’s starting to feel sleepy. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again Gus is shaking him.  
  
“We’re here. Come on, I’ll walk up with you.”  
  
Shawn stumbles getting out of the car and Gus takes him by the arm. As always, Gus smells really good and is solid and warm and he has a shiny head, and Shawn leans against him gratefully in the elevator.  
  
“You’re the best friend in the world, Gus.”  
  
“You know that’s right,” Gus mutters, peeling Shawn’s hands off of his head, where they’ve mysteriously migrated.  
  
Gus knocks on Lassiter’s door, and when it’s opened he unceremoniously thrusts Shawn at Lassiter. “Here. He’s reached the handsy phase, so he’s all yours.”  
  
“What happened?” Lassiter asks, aghast.  
  
“I don’t know, man. I left him to pick up the truck this afternoon, and then I get a call tonight that’s he’s wasted at a bar downtown and needs a ride home.”  
  
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Shawn complains, but it comes out all muffled because somehow his face is now pressed against Lassiter’s shirt.  
  
“Thanks for bringing him home. I left him a message that I was working late, and when I didn’t hear from him, I just assumed he was with you.”  
  
Shawn misses whatever it is they say next, because he’s busy nuzzling his nose into Lassie’s throat and running his hands down Lassie’s sides, grinning in triumph when he hits a ticklish spot and Lassiter jerks under his hands, then grabs his wrists to keep him from going any lower.  
  
“I see what you mean by handsy.”  
  
“Yeah, it comes right after his happy phase and will hopefully lead him to his sleepy phase. Thankfully, I don’t think he had quite enough to drink to get to his asshole stage. I’m gonna go now. Shawn, I’ll call you tomorrow.”  
  
“Bye, Gus!” Shawn says, without moving. After the door shuts behind Gus, Shawn tries to wrestle his hands away from Lassiter so he can go back to groping him.  
  
“Spencer, what the hell happened?”  
  
“No talking right now,” Shawn orders, nipping at his neck. “Let’s go to bed and I’ll blow your …” he interrupts himself by yawning hugely. “…mind,” he finishes sleepily, while struggling to keep his eyes open.  
  
Despite the worry evident on his face, Lassiter can’t help but laugh. “Why don’t we take a raincheck on that, Don Juan, so you can get some sleep.”  
  
“Okay,” Shawn agrees docilely as he allows Lassie to lead him into the bedroom. “Are you mad at me for getting drunk?”  
  
There’s a pause before Lassiter answers. “Of course not. I just worry about you. I don’t know how to help you, Shawn.” He disappears for a moment, and Shawn collapses onto the bed, thinking about how he should have talked Lassie into moving to Alaska instead of coming back to Santa Barbara. There has to be crime to fight in Alaska, right? Jaywalking caribou maybe, and thieving moose. Maybe there would be a whiny displaced New York doctor and a hot bush pilot, like on that TV show. Did they have a cop on that show? Shawn can’t remember one. Lassie could be their cop, and Shawn could be…something. Whatever. Maybe he could work at the radio station with the cute DJ. He smiles a little at the thought of he and Lassie in a snowy wonderland where he has no bad memories.  
  
When Lassiter returns, he has a glass of water and a couple of aspirin in his hand.  
  
“Stay awake long enough to drink this,” he says, and Shawn sits up to obey before falling back against the pillows. He can feel Lassiter moving to pull off his shoes and his jeans, and he struggles for something sexy to say, but all that comes out is another yawn. “Don’t want you to worry,” he manages to say muzzily before drifting off to sleep. “’m fine. Should‘ve gone to Alaska.”


	6. Chapter 6

When the alarm goes off the next morning, Shawn grabs a pillow and covers his head in a doomed attempt to block the sound.  
  
“Make it stop!” he groans.  
  
The bleating of the clock stops, and he sighs in relief, before remembering that he has to get up because he made a promise to Hornstock.  He reluctantly sits up to find Lassiter putting a cup of coffee on the nightstand next to him.  
  
“How’s your head?”  
  
“It feels like there’s construction work going on inside my brain. Tiny hammers pounding away. Maybe it will feel better after a shower,” he says, sipping gratefully at his coffee.  
  
“Oh, shit,” he says suddenly, in realization.  
  
“What?”  
  
“The clothes I bought yesterday to wear to court. They’re still in the truck. Damn it! I don’t have anything to wear, and none of your clothes will fit me.” What he doesn’t say is that he knows this because during one of his bouts of insomnia earlier in the week, he had tried on one of Lassie’s suit jackets. The fit across the shoulders wasn’t terrible, but the cuffs had hung down over his fingertips like he was a kid trying on his dad’s clothes, a thought that had made him shudder and hastily take the jacket off.  
  
“Where’s the truck parked? I’ll go get your stuff while you start getting ready. I worked late last night, the Chief won’t mind if I come in a little late this morning.”  
  
Shawn tells him the name of the bar he was at the night before, and realizes after Lassiter leaves that he’s going to see the box on the front seat and know what set Shawn off the day before, but it’s too late to worry about that now.    
  
After more coffee and aspirin and a shower, he feels far better than he probably should, given how much he drank the night before.  He’s relieved, because he would hate to screw up this job today, both because Hornstock is a nice guy, and because he wants to prove to himself, and maybe to Lassiter too, that he can use his skills doing something besides being a fake psychic.  
  
When Lassiter comes back and hands Shawn his clothes, he hesitantly says “I saw the box…” but Shawn cuts him off. “You have to go to work now, and so do I. Bye!”  
  
He feels a little guilty shutting Lassie down for being concerned about him, but he sure as hell can’t take a discussion about the contents of that box this morning. Or, possibly, ever.  
  
It feels unexpectedly good to go to the courthouse and work. Watching the potential jurors and giving advice to Hornstock on which ones are going to be more sympathetic to his client keeps Shawn’s mind busy so that for the first time since he’s been home, he doesn’t feel anxious or angry or sad. Well, sex with Lassie usually quells those feelings too, but he can’t expect Lassiter to do him twenty-four hours a day. Plus, even though it had been alcohol-fueled, he also had the first real night of sleep since he’s been home, and he thinks that’s probably contributing to him feeling more emotionally stable today.  
  
When the day is over, Hornstock has extended to him an offer to stay on for the duration of the trial as a consultant, which Shawn accepts with mixed feelings. The work is fine – not as satisfying as solving crime, but far better than waiting tables – but the responsibility makes him feel itchy. When things fall apart with Lassiter, he wants to be able to run, and making promises to Hornstock limits his ability to do that. But Hornstock says that the trial shouldn’t last more than a week or two at the most, and Shawn is hopeful that he and Lassie can stick it out for at least that long.  
  
Shawn knows it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy to keep thinking of Lassiter dumping him in terms of “when” and not “if”, but he feels like he’s just accepting the inevitable. Lassiter has been incredibly patient with him, particularly given the fact that in the past, he was hardly known for his patience, but Shawn can tell that he’s getting frustrated with his moodiness. Not that Shawn blames him; he’s fed up with his moodiness too, but he doesn’t know how to put an end to it. It used to be that he always had a pretty tight handle on his emotions. He had to, growing up with Henry, because his dad didn’t approve of letting emotions overtake logic and reason. Since Henry’s death though, it’s like he’s overflowing with grief and anger, and he doesn’t know how to put a lid on it.  He doesn’t expect Lassiter to put up with him forever, and a part of him even thinks that Lassie might be better off without him. He’s not sure what he’s bringing to this relationship except a boatload of issues.  
  
After work, he goes back to Lassiter’s place, which he has a hard time thinking of as “home”, even though he and Lassie seemed to have skipped right to the “living together” part of their relationship without ever actually discussing it. Sure, they had talked about how it would be most practical for Shawn to stay with Lassiter when he came back to Santa Barbara, but somehow it hadn’t occurred to Shawn that he would in effect be actually moving in with Lassiter; when they had talked about it before, he had thought of it as a temporary solution, but in practice it seems permanent, which feels both weird and right. Weird because it’s absolutely happened too fast, especially given the fact that neither he nor Lassie is necessarily the most stable guy in the world. But right in how easy it had been, and how much the thought of getting his own place makes him sad.  
  
Just as he gets home from work, Gus calls and says that his parents want to know if Shawn will come over to have dinner with them that night, so he texts Lassie to say that he’s spending the evening with the Gusters. It’s nice to eat a home-cooked meal, even if he’s a little weirded out by how Mr. and Mrs. Guster are being extra-special nice to him. Mr. Guster tries to give him money, and Mrs. Guster sends him home with dishes of leftovers. He doesn’t mention to them his relationship with Lassiter, both because he doesn’t want to spend the night reassuring them that Gus is heterosexual and also because he’s not sure how keen they would be to hear that he’s in a relationship with the cop who once arrested them both for murder.  
  
When he gets back to the condo, he watches TV for a while with Lassie, who is unusually quiet, even for him, before Lassie pleads exhaustion and goes to bed. Shawn tries to watch more TV, but it’s not as much fun without someone to snuggle with and snark to, so he gets up and rearranges all the canned goods in Lassiter’s pantry in order of deliciousness, skims through a few back issues of _Law Enforcement Monthly_ , then flips through Lassiter’s most recent case files again. Lassie’s closed several cases just in the few days that Shawn has been home, but there’s one in particular that seems to be stumping him, a shooting in an alley where the only witness was a drunk guy who had found the body. When Shawn realizes that he’s becoming unwillingly intrigued by the case, he shoves the file away. It’s none of his business.  
  
After that, he starts sorting through Lassie’s CD collection, where he finds a baffling combination of Ravi Shankar, Frank Sinatra, Abba, and…Hanson? Truly, he thinks to himself with amusement, Carlton Lassiter is a complex man.  
  
Finally, realizing that he has to get up in four hours to go back to work, he goes to bed, the steady sound of Lassiter’s breathing eventually lulling him to sleep.  
  
Work the next day is…work. He can’t believe he’s already starting to feel antsy on the second day of the job – usually it takes him at least a week before he starts mentally composing his resignation letter. It must be the rigidity of the courtroom and the fact that he has to sit still for most of the day getting to him. He likes Hornstock though, so he’s not going to run out on him; he’s just going to hope for a speedy end to the trial.  
  
When he gets off from work, Lassiter isn’t home yet, so he calls Gus to see if he wants to bring his Playstation over so they can hang out and play games all night.  
  
“Can we do it tomorrow night instead?” Gus asks. “I have to work late tonight.”  
  
“Dude!” Shawn whines, “you’ve been at work all day! Why are you still there?”  
  
“I got a promotion, remember? That means I have more work to do, Shawn. I know you wouldn’t understand about that since you’ve never had a real job, but take my word for it.”  
  
Shawn pulls the phone away from his ear to frown at it, then returns it to say “Excuse me, I wanted to talk to my friend Gus, not Bitchy McBitcherson. Is Gus there?”  
  
He hears a sigh from the other end. “Sorry, sorry. Learning these new drug protocols is stressing me out. I’m going for a hot stone massage and aromatherapy session tomorrow after work to get rid of all my negative energy. I’ll call you after that.”  
  
“Okay,” Shawn says, disappointed. “Later, man.”  
  
He hadn’t really considered Gus’s promotion before, or thought much about the fact that without Psych, Gus would have thrown all of his energy into his other job. Of the two of them, Gus has always been the responsible one, the one capable of functioning, even thriving, in a normal environment. As much as Shawn knows that Gus had loved Psych, he wonders if losing it might not have been good for him. At least now, he was far less likely to be threatened by serial killers or held at gunpoint by desperate murderers or chased by nonexistent ghosts. Okay, the ghosts had never really worried Shawn that much, but the memory of Yin threatening to shoot Gus full of poison still made him feel sick. Maybe it was for the best that Gus wasn’t taking those sorts of risks anymore.  
  
Not long after that Lassiter comes home, disappearing into the bedroom to discard his tie and jacket just as there’s a knock at the door.  
  
“Can you get that, Spencer?”  
  
“Sure thing,” Shawn says, remembering the last time he had opened the door and found Jules on the other side. Whoever it is now, he’s hoping for a little less drama.  
  
He opens the door to a guy a few years younger than himself with clean features, dark, slick-backed hair, a bad suit, and an even worse tie. Cop, obviously, even if Shawn hadn’t seen the glint of a badge on his belt. He’s scowling, which Shawn thinks is probably his default expression. Actually, in demeanor and styling he bears a startling resemblance to Lassiter circa six years ago, before Shawn, Gus, and Jules had come along to loosen him up.  
  
“Hi!” Shawn says cheerfully. “Gummie bear?” he offers, holding out the bag he’s been snacking from.  
  
“I’m looking for Detective Carlton Lassiter,” the cop says doubtfully, peering past Shawn like he thinks he might have the wrong apartment.  
  
“Lassie! The mini-me you ordered is here!”  
  
“What?” Lassiter asks, sounding confused and vaguely irritable, as he comes out of the bedroom. “Oh. McIntyre. What are you doing here?”  
  
“You left your phone in the car, Detective,” McIntyre says, holding it out to Lassiter.  
  
“It must have dropped out of my pocket. Thanks for bringing it up.”  
  
McIntyre is still staring at Shawn, who continues to toss back gummie bears. “Sure you don’t want one?” he asks, offering the bag again.  
  
Lassiter sighs. “Spencer, this is my new junior partner, Joseph McIntyre. McIntyre, this is Shawn Spencer.”  
  
Any other time, Shawn might take a moment to appreciate just how straightforwardly Lassiter had made the introductions; no prevarications or explanations, leaving McIntyre to draw whatever conclusions he wants about what kind of relationship Lassiter has with Shawn. At the moment though, he’s far too distracted by more important matters.  
  
“Joey McIntyre!” he exclaims, delighted. “Dude, I was totally rooting for you on _Dancing With the Stars_!”  
  
McIntyre’s scowl remains unchanged. “It’s _Joseph_ ,” he snaps, “no relation. See you tomorrow, Lassiter.”  
  
As he turns to go, Shawn can’t help but call out “Later, man! Hang tough!”  
  
McIntyre’s shoulders tense, but he doesn’t turn around. Shawn shuts the door and turns to look at Lassiter.  
  
“It’s like someone went back in time and cloned you.”  
  
Lassiter frowns, and it’s such an uncanny match for McIntyre’s expression that Shawn has to bite back a laugh.  
  
“What are you talking about? He’s nothing like me! He’s an uptight little jackass.”  
  
“Okay,” Shawn says agreeably, and now he does have to turn away so Lassie can’t see him grinning.  
  
“What? He has no sense of humor, he only sees the world in shades of black and white, and he’s incapable of thinking outside the box.”  
  
Lassiter sounds honestly frustrated, which is only making it funnier to Shawn, but he manages to suppress his amusement so that he can turn to face Lassie again, grabbing him by his tie and pulling him in for a kiss.  
  
“He’s also not the least bit sexy,” Shawn tells him, “so you’re right. He’s nothing like you.”  
Lassie still looks unhappy. “Did I screw that up? Does it bother you that I didn’t introduce you as my…my…”  
  
“Your boyfriend? Partner? Lovah in the night?” Shawn suggests, fluttering his eyelashes coquettishly.  
  
“Yes. Well, the first two, not the last one.”  
  
“Nah. Labels kind of freak me out. We’re just _us_.”  
  
Lassiter looks away. “It’s not like I care what he thinks about me.”  
  
“Yes, you do,” Shawn says, suddenly serious. “You have to. He’s the guy watching your back.  If he’s the kind of guy who would have a problem with this then it actually does matter, because you have to trust him.”  
  
“I don’t know yet,” Lassiter admits with a sigh. “We haven’t talked much, except about cases.”

  
Shawn thinks back to what he noticed about Detective McIntyre. “Judging by his accent, he’s from the Midwest. He’s the oldest of at least two siblings. Middle class family, probably attended college on a combination of scholarships and loans. He has a chip on his shoulder and something to prove – my guess is that his parents were not thrilled with his career choice. They think it’s too dangerous, maybe, or that he should be a lawyer, not a cop. No wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend right now, and no indication that he’s been married.”  
  
He chews thoughtfully on a mouthful of gummies before continuing. “He couldn’t stop staring at me, which might mean that he was wondering why you have such a hot man muffin tucked away in your apartment, but it could be that he’s just jealous of my amazing hair. Hard to tell if he’s homophobic without asking, or without making out in front of him and seeing how he reacts. We can try that, if you want.”  
  
Lassiter is staring at him wide-eyed “You got all of that from the forty-five seconds that he was here?”  
  
Shawn shrugs. “It’s just a cold reading. I probably have a couple of details wrong. None of it helps you know if you can trust him, though. But you know if there’s a problem you can get him re-assigned, as long as you’re honest with Chief Vick about why, right? Does she know about this yet?” Shawn asks, waving his hand between the two of them.  
  
“Yes. No? Maybe.”  
  
“Thanks for clearing that up.”  
  
“She knows that I was with you when I was on my vacation. She asked about you when I came back, if you were okay and if you were back in Santa Barbara, but beyond that, we haven’t talked about it.” Lassiter drops onto the sofa. “Speaking of Vick, I didn’t say anything to her about you not being a psychic, and I know that O’Hara didn’t say anything about it either. If you wanted to, you could…” he trails off, looking up at Shawn expectantly.  
  
“Go back to work as the resident psychic? I don’t think so. My days as a dashing detective are over.”  
  
“Spencer, even now it kills me to admit it, but you have a real talent. Don’t let it go to waste.”  
  
“But I have so many talents!” Shawn says flippantly. “I’ve been letting all the others go to waste for years now. Just wait until you experience my skill as a masseuse! Trust me, you’ll never want me to do anything else. I’ll give you a demonstration later tonight. First one’s free!”  
  
Lassiter looks intrigued for a moment, then scowls. “Stop trying to distract me with sex!”  
  
“I’m sorry, what else would you like me to distract you with? Food? A song and dance routine? Maybe some juggling?”  
  
“I want you to stop trying to change the subject when I bring up the idea of you going back to work for the department.”  
  
Shawn winces, because that’s exactly what he’s been trying to do, but he knows that with Lassiter, the best defense is a good offense.  
  
“The way I remember it, I wasn’t the one to change the subject. You were. We were talking about how you haven’t told Chief Vick about us, and you obviously haven’t mentioned it to your new partner, and I’m just curious: have you told anyone that you’re riding the Shawn Express?”  
  
“First of all, I would NEVER say anything like that. And second of all, it’s not as if I’ve ever talked about my personal life at work.”  
  
Shawn nods in acknowledgement. “Fair enough. How about your mother? Have you told her anything? Or Lauren?”  
  
“I haven’t talked to my mother or sister in weeks,” he says, then adds wryly “I don’t think Mother and her girlfriend will have that much of a problem with it, though.”  
  
And okay, Shawn had sort of known that already because he had seen the picture of Mrs. Lassiter and her partner, but it was still interesting to have it confirmed.  
  
“What about you?” Lassiter asks. “Have you told Madeline anything?”  
  
“Nooo,” Shawn says. “I have not. It’s not the dating a guy thing that worries me, it’s the dating a cop thing. Especially since it started after dad died. I’m afraid she’s going to read all kinds of weirdness into it.”  
  
“You were dating a cop before he died,” Lassiter points out.  
  
“Yeah, but Jules isn’t an older male authority figure.”  
  
“I’m not that much older,” Lassiter says grumpily, which makes Shawn grin.  
  
“No, you’re not,” he agrees, sitting down beside Lassie and placing his hand on the other man’s thigh, “but you should probably prove to me again just how young and virile you are.”  
  
“You’re trying to distract me with sex again.”  
  
Shawn kisses his jaw and moves his hand a little higher. “Do you want me to stop?”  
  
“…No.”  
  
Later that night, Shawn can’t sleep again. He watches Letterman, plays an exciting game of trashcan basketball, reads the new notes Lassie’s made on the case he’s been working on, finds a file on Lassie’s computer entitled “Squirrels: Modern Day Scourge” and cleans out the refrigerator. Around 3:00 a.m. he decides to try to get a few hours of sleep and crawls into bed with Lassiter, who remains oblivious to his wakefulness. Shawn envies his ability to sleep through the night, but even as he’s thinking that, Lassiter’s arms wrap around him and he mutters “’bout damn time,” before instantly drifting back to sleep. Shawn closes his eyes and tries to match his breathing to Lassie’s, hoping that he can lull himself into getting some rest.  
  
“Shawn, over here!”  
  
Shawn turns, squinting into the glare of the sun reflecting off the beach, to see Henry in his police uniform, crouched beside a body on the ground. A few feet away is Abigail, dripping wet and wrapped in a blanket. He starts to go towards her, but she turns her back to him and he’s distracted by his dad’s voice.  
  
“Look around for clues, kid. See if you can figure out what happened.”  
  
Shawn dutifully studies the area around the body, but he can’t see anything that might be considered a clue. His eyes travel up as he catalogs the details: white sneakers, khaki pants, blue striped button-up shirt covered with blood, male, fit condition…until finally his gaze lands on the face and he drops to his knees beside Henry in horror.  
  
“Dad, it’s Gus! We have to do something!” He frantically pulls at Gus’s shirt, trying to figure out where the wound is located.  
  
Henry just shrugs. There’s blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “It’s too late, kid. You have only yourself to blame. Didn’t I teach you to take better care of your things?”  
  
There’s blood all over his hands now, warm and sticky and Gus’s face, usually so full of life and energy, is slack and still. Shawn can’t breathe, he’s suffocating, he –  
  
“Wake up, Shawn. It’s just a dream. Wake up.”  
  
He comes awake with a gasp, jerking out of Lassiter’s hands and rolling to the edge of the bed so he can sit up. “Shit, shit, shit,” he whispers, running a hand across his face.  
  
Lassiter is rubbing his back. “Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
“Nope,” he says flatly. Privately, he’s wondering why his subconscious always has his dad acting like such an asshole in these dreams; yeah, there was a lot of friction between him and Shawn at times, but there had been plenty of good times too.  In the dreams though, he’s always at his most rigid and unforgiving.  
  
He looks at the clock and sees that it’s five thirty in the morning. He’s barely slept two hours, and the alarm is going to go off in another hour, which is fine, because he has no intention of going back to sleep anyway. He lays his head back onto the pillow and stretches out with a sigh.  
  
“Sorry I woke you.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it.” Lassiter sounds like he’s frowning, but Shawn isn’t sure if that’s because he’s worried about Shawn still having nightmares or if he’s upset that he won’t talk about the dreams. The thought of hashing them out makes Shawn squirm; he’s told Lassie a little bit about them before, and that’s just going to have to be enough.    
  
He nuzzles a little closer, resting his head against Lassiter’s shoulder. He’s not exactly in the mood for nookie right now – the image of Dead Gus behind his eyes is a libido killer – but he doesn’t want Lassie to go back to sleep and leave him alone in the dark for another hour. And the thing is, he knows he could just _say_ that and Lassie would understand, but he feels so helpless and immature already, and an admission like that would just make it worse.  
  
So instead, he says “Hey Lass, did you know that koala bears aren’t really bears? They’re marsupials. And the males have two-pronged penises.”  
  
“No,” Lassiter says after a lengthy pause, “I did not know that. I also don’t know why you’re telling me this at 4:30 in the morning, unless you’re about to try to talk me into some sort of weird sex thing.”  
  
Shawn muffles his laugh against Lassie’s shirtsleeve. “Maybe later. Speaking of weird sex things, female koalas have three vaginas and in captivity are raging lesbians. They also have fingerprints that are almost identical to human fingerprints.”  
  
“Spencer, why do you know all of these things about koala bears? More importantly, why are you telling me about them now?”  
  
“Dude, I love koalas! They’re adorable! Or, at least they were before I knew about the double-headed penis thing.” He thinks about it for a moment. “No, they’re still adorable.”  
  
“You’re so weird,” Lassiter says, but his tone is affectionate.  
  
“I’m weird? Do you even want to start this with me? I’m not the one with a list of which coworkers I would eat first in a survival situation.”  
  
“That’s just practical!”  
  
“Have you updated it now that you’re working with different people?”  
  
“Of course. I update it on a monthly basis. McIntyre is going to be the first to go, because I don’t want to have to listen to him complain during a crisis. After that is McNab. With any luck, he could keep a small group of survivors fed for at least a week.”  
  
“All this talk of eating your coworkers is making me hungry. Wanna go grab some breakfast somewhere before work?”  
  
They go to a diner that’s close to both the police station and the courthouse. Shawn is ordering a Western Omelet (“with extra Western” he tells the waitress) when he realizes their mistake in coming to a place so convenient to work.  
  
“Shawn, is that you? Oh my god!” He turns to see Buzz McNab trotting over to their booth,  and wonders irrationally if he and Lassie conjured him by mentioning him earlier that morning. He stands up to greet Buzz and finds himself wrapped in a rib-crushing bear hug.  
  
“Buzz!” he wheezes, “Buddy, it’s good to see you, but I need to breathe now.”  
  
“Sorry,” Buzz says, releasing him. “It’s been so long, Shawn! And you’re here with Detective Lassiter! Does that mean you’re working on a case?”  
  
Shawn and Lassiter exchange quick glances, but before Lassiter can say anything, Shawn replies smoothly “Nope, I’m afraid Psych is out of business. Lassie and I were just grabbing a bite to eat together.” Not a lie, but not exactly the whole truth either. He deftly steers the conversation away from himself by asking about Buzz’s wife, who is expecting their first baby, and about the little boy cat, and then their food is arriving and after another bone-crushing hug, Buzz is excusing himself because he’s due at the station.  
  
Shawn sits down with a feeling of relief only to see that Lassie looks disgruntled.  
  
“What?” he asks. “Did you want me to tell him?”  
  
“I wouldn’t have stopped you.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly see you jumping in to share the news.”  
  
Lassiter just shrugs, pushing his egg whites around his plate.  
  
“Look,” Shawn says, “I know you think I’m a loudmouth with no impulse control—”  
  
“I can’t imagine why I would think anything like that,” Lassiter says dryly.  
  
“But Buzz is your coworker, not mine anymore. It’s not my place to tell him anything, and it’s cool if you don’t, Lassie, really. If you’ll remember, even when I was dating Jules we kept it pretty quiet around the station. I don’t even *go* to the station anymore, so there’s no reason to make a big deal about this.”  
  
“Yeah, you’re right,” Lassiter says, still looking distinctly grumpy in a way that suggests that he thinks Shawn is just trying to tell him what he wants to hear.  
  
What Shawn is thinking about though is the possible detritus of Lassiter’s career if he starts introducing him as his boyfriend only to break up with Shawn a short time later. He doesn’t want Lassiter’s career ruined because he picked a flaky, immature guy that no one would be able to live with to date.  
  
Going to his second day of work with Hornstock is a relief, because he doesn’t have time to think about bad dreams or dead dads or hopeless relationships. It’s not until lunch that all of his worries come flooding back to him, when he catches a glimpse of shiny blonde hair in the hallway and remembers with a jolt that the Marshal’s office is located in the courthouse. He ducks into a stairwell to avoid running into Juliet, and hates himself for it because this is not the kind of person he is. Shawn Spencer is not afraid of confrontations. But it’s not Jules yelling at him in public that he’s afraid of; she’s far too much of a professional to ever do that. It’s the cold politeness he knows she would greet him with, the hint of hurt in her eyes that she wouldn’t be able to hide. That’s what he can’t deal with, especially not when the day has already gotten off to such a rocky start with bad dreams and worried Lassie.  
  
So he spends the lunch break hiding in a stairwell and texting Gus to remind him that they have a Playstation date that night, then texting Lassiter to tell him that koala bears are only about a centimeter long at birth, and also that Gus is coming over tonight.  
  
After work he goes to the grocery store, and later, when Lassiter comes home, he’s in the kitchen, cooking what he’s certain is going to be a culinary masterpiece.  
  
“You can cook?” Lassiter asks as he comes into the kitchen, looking amazed and also a little hopeful.  
  
“I’ve worked at restaurants all around the country, so yeah, I’ve picked up a few tips along the way,” Shawn laughs.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Pineapple chicken stir fry. Wanna taste?” he asks.  
  
“Yeah,” Lassiter replies, but instead of taking the fork Shawn tries to hand him, he reaches for Shawn instead, pressing him against the counter as he kisses him.  
  
“Mmmm” Shawn hums, smiling against Lassie’s mouth, “Is that because I cooked dinner? Because I’ll warn you right now, my favorite recipe is always going to be a take-out menu.”  
  
“It’s been a while since anyone cooked for me,” Lassiter admits, kissing him again. Shawn is thinking that it might be worth it to cook more often when he hears a knock at the door.  
  
“Gus is here,” he says, pushing Lassie gently away, “Go let him in while I finish up in here.”  
  
Jeez, he thinks as Lassiter walks away, less than a week and he’s already so domesticated that they’re practically acting married. More sex than sitcoms had led him to believe that married couples had, but still. He can’t decide if feeling that way makes him want to run for the hills or don an apron and stay forever. A little of both, maybe.  
  
Gus comes in, sniffing the air. “Is that your pineapple chicken? Damn, that smells good.”  
  
It’s nice, hanging out with Gus and Lassie, eating dinner and then hooking up Gus’s PS3 to the TV and playing Arkham Asylum until midnight. He could get used to this, and that thought scares him because he knows he can’t get too complacent.  
  
He has to remember that all of this is only temporary, until Lassie gets tired of him.  



	7. Chapter 7

The next day is Saturday, and along with Lassiter and Gus, Shawn is back at Henry’s house. He’s determined to get through as much of the house as he can this weekend; he’s tired of having it hanging over his head.   
  
He has Lassiter bring the truck, which is still parked at the bar from earlier in the week. When Lassie asks him about the box on the front seat, he shrugs and says “Burn it for all I care,” which he’s really kind of counting on Lassie not to do because he thinks he might want to keep his dad’s hat, but he’s trying to harden himself against the tide of memories that he knows are waiting for him in the house.   
  
He sends Gus to finish the kitchen and he starts in the attic, which proves to be surprisingly easy. When he comes across a couple of boxes of pictures and photo albums, he seals them shut and puts them aside to send to his mom. When he finds some boxes of clothes, he opens them just long enough to determine if they should go in the garbage or to Goodwill. He finds a box of his old report cards and school papers that he relegates to the trash. He’s pretty sure he’s never going to need to know what his math scores in third grade were like, and even if he does need to know, he thinks he’ll remember if he just concentrates on it.  
   
He’s not sure how many hours have passed when he hears Gus call up and ask him if he wants something to eat, and he realizes he’s starving. He looks around and sees, almost to his surprise, that the attic is virtually cleaned out.  
  
He comes downstairs and finds sandwiches and bottles of water and Gus, who says “Carlton will be back in a few minutes. The back of the truck was full, so he went to drop some things off at Goodwill.”  
  
Shawn chugs down half a bottle of water, then asks “What time is it?”  
  
“Almost 3:30. I’ve got to go soon, to get ready for my date tonight.”  
  
Gus had told him the night before that he had called the salesclerk whose number Shawn had procured for him earlier in the week and made a date for tonight.  
  
“Where are you taking her?”  
  
“Mario’s, down by the boardwalk, and then for a walk along the beach in the moonlight.”  
  
“What? That girl doesn’t stand a chance against the Guster charm by the light of the moon. Go on, get out of here.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Gus asks, looking at his watch, clearly torn between wanting to leave and not wanting to leave Shawn alone.  
  
“Dude, go. Lassie will be back soon, and you’re filthy. There’s actually a layer of dust on you, it’s disgusting. Go clean yourself up for the girl.”  
  
“Huh. If you think I look disgusting, you should see yourself,” Gus says, but he takes Shawn’s advice and leaves.   
  
Shawn takes one of the sandwiches and a second bottle of water and goes out to the porch to eat. Now that he’s stopped working, he’s starting to feel tired. He had slept a few hours the night before but had awakened at four in the morning, his mind racing as he thought about what it would take to finish with the house and get it in saleable condition. He had gotten up, watched a little Cartoon Network, played with Lassie’s monocle (useless, in his opinion), glanced again over the case file for the murder that Lassie and McIntyre were still working on, and drawn a picture of himself and Lassie as stick figures doing something semi-pornographic which he had hung on the wall next to the Most Wanted pictures in the dining room.  
  
Now, he finishes his sandwich and tips his head back against his chair, on the verge of dozing off when he hears the truck pull into the driveway. He opens his eyes and smiles as he takes in the sight of Lassiter getting out of the truck wearing a pair of jeans. Jeans! Even on vacation, Lassie had dressed like he was going to work every day, just minus the jacket and tie. When he had appeared that morning in jeans and one of his SBPD t-shirts, Shawn had damn near swooned in shock, which had of course embarrassed Lassie so much that he had threatened to change clothes.   
  
“Did Guster leave?” Lassiter asks, looking over at where the Blueberry had been parked earlier.  
  
“Yeah, he had to go make himself pretty for his date. He finished with the kitchen, and I’m done with the attic. How’s the garage coming along?”  
  
“Almost done,” Lassiter says, dropping into the chair next to Shawn’s. “I haven’t gone through all of the tools or the fishing equipment yet.”  
  
“You know you can keep any of that stuff , right? I told Gus, and I’ll tell you too, Henry would have wanted you to have anything that you like.”  
  
“Would he have?” Lassiter asks, his tone odd, and Shawn turns to really look at him.  
  
“Well yeah, of course. Just because you two got on each other’s nerves sometimes…”  
  
“No, I mean…how would he have felt about this?” Lassiter asks, gesturing between himself and Shawn. “About us?”  
  
Shawn leans back and closes his eyes again. “He probably would have freaked out,” he admits, “at least at first. But he knew I was bi, so it’s not like it would have come as a complete shock.”  
  
“He knew?” Lassiter asks, sounding surprised.  
  
Shawn grins a little ruefully. “Do you really think I would have passed up the chance to torture him with that knowledge when I was a teenager? I let him catch me and Oliver Perkins making out in my bedroom when I was sixteen. Scared the shit out of poor Oliver. Last I heard, he was still in therapy. Dad wouldn’t let me be alone with Gus for weeks after that, until I was able to convince him that Gus was irreversibly straight.” He opens his eyes and sighs theatrically. “It’s no wonder I wasn’t able to get laid until I was out of high school. My dad scared all of my potential partners so much that I never had a chance.”  
  
“Even the girls?”   
  
“After Oliver, especially the girls. Not that I brought home that many girls to meet dad to begin with, but the few that I did all thought he was trying to marry us off at the age of seventeen or something because he was so overeager to see me with a girlfriend.”  
  
“So he wouldn’t have approved,” Lassiter says, sounding a little unhappy at the realization.  
  
“Oh Lassie, I don’t know. He had mellowed a lot since then.  I don’t think it mattered to him so much anymore, and he liked you. Maybe he would have thought of you as the son he wished he'd had. But it’s hard to say, because the only two people I dated seriously since coming back to Santa Barbara were Abigail and Jules, so for all I know he thought that liking guys was just a phase, or something I did to piss him off. It’s not like we ever really talked about it.”  
  
Shawn stands up and stretches, ready to change the subject because talking about this is starting to make him sad.   
  
“Why don’t you finish with the garage tomorrow? I want to clean out the papers in dad’s desk and I need you to help me figure out what I should keep.”  
  
It’s an excuse, really; he could clean out the desk on his own, but he doesn’t want to be alone anymore today.   
  
“Sure,” Lassiter says, also standing. Shawn reaches over and hooks his fingers into the belt loops of Lassie’s jeans, pulling him close for a kiss. “How weird would it be if we went upstairs to my old bedroom and I let you get to third base?” he asks, running his hand down Lassie’s back.  
  
“Weird,” Lassie agrees, then hesitantly adds “also kind of hot. But,” he says, stepping away and looking resolved, “you told me this morning not to let you get distracted because you wanted to get as much work as possible done today.”  
  
“Spoilsport,” Shawn says sulkily, but he doesn’t argue, instead leading the way to Henry’s desk.  
  
It’s mostly the kind of crap Shawn expected – credit card statements, bank statements, receipts. He pauses when he finds a stack of postcards from Uncle Jack tucked in a drawer, the most recent of which is more than a year old. He’s not sure if Jack even knows that Henry is dead, and he has no idea how to get in touch with him. He puts the postcards aside to look at later, and is about to turn his attention back to a mind-numbingly boring stack of receipts when a sound from Lassiter gets his attention.  
  
Lassiter had been going through one of the drawers, and now he’s holding a file open and peering at a piece of paper with something like disbelief on his face.   
  
“Jesus Christ, Spencer, you took the Secret Service exam? And you made a 95?”  
  
“Huh, I didn’t know he had kept that. It should have been a 98, by the way. One of the questions was flawed.”  
  
“So why aren’t you in the Secret Service?” Lassie asks. “Or,” he adds dryly, “did you work there for six months, thwart an assassination attempt, then quit because you got bored?”  
  
“I have a record, remember? I could never have actually made it in. It took some finagling to even be able to take the test.”  
  
“So why take the test in the first place?”  
  
Shawn grins. “Because I was being an asshole. It was a few months after dad arrested me, and when the chance to take the test presented itself, I took it to show him how he ruined all of my opportunities by arresting me, not that I ever had any intention of joining the Secret Service in the first place. You have to wear a suit every day! I could never do that.  Let me see that file. There might be results from the CIA exam in there too.”  
  
Instead of handing the file over, Lassiter continues to flip through it. “Yeah, here’s the CIA exam, and the FBI, and the…forestry service? And the Detective’s Exam that you scored 100 on.” He shakes his head, closing the file and looking at Shawn.  
  
“What?” Shawn asks defensively.   
  
“Sometimes I forget that you’re some kind of super genius.”  
  
Shawn makes a face. “I hate that word. Also, it’s not even true. I’m just good at tests.”  
  
“Right. Henry must have cursed himself on a daily basis for arresting you for that stupid stunt with the car. You could have done anything you wanted.”  
  
Shawn shakes his head. “I never wanted any of those jobs. I just took the tests to see if I could pass them. And,” he says, reaching into the top drawer of the desk to pull out something he already knows is there, “I did do anything I wanted.”  
  
He hands Lassiter the thick stack of postcards that he’s still surprised Henry kept. They’re from everywhere in the world, or everywhere Shawn’s been, anyway. Thailand and Argentina, Costa Rica and New York City. Lassiter studies them, reading the scrawled messages on the back which mostly consist of obnoxious “glad I’m here and not there” notes.  
  
“I would never have been happy in a suit-and-tie job, even one where I got to solve crime and arrest bad guys.  The way things turned out, I was able to travel all over and meet all kinds of people and do all kinds of different work. I had a lot of fun.”  
  
Lassiter sets the postcards down and focuses his attention on Shawn. “Why did you come back?”  
  
“To hang out with Gus for a while, of course. I didn’t plan on staying. I definitely didn’t know dad was here – he had moved to Miami after I left, and he didn’t let me know that he had moved back. And then Psych happened, and I didn’t want to leave.”  
  
For once, he’s having a hard time reading the expression on Lassie’s face. He looks kind of sad, but the memories Shawn has been sharing are mostly happy ones for him, and he doesn’t know why they would leave Lassiter looking so unhappy. Before he can ask, Lassiter pulls him forward and kisses him hard, reaching up to cup the back of his head with one hand. It’s so sudden that Shawn actually stumbles back a step, before catching himself and grabbing Lassie’s shoulders.  Lassiter’s mouth travels down to his neck while one of his hands strokes up under Shawn’s shirt, and Shawn gasps out a laugh.  
  
“Wait, wait. We’re going upstairs. This may be my last chance ever to get lucky in that bedroom.”  
  
He takes Lassiter by the arm and drags him up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door behind him. Once in the room, he looks around and sees his album collection.   
  
“We should put on some music. How do you feel about Depeche –”  
  
Lassiter cuts him off by kissing him again, pushing him towards the bed.   
  
“Wow,” Shawn says between kisses, “if I had known that test scores would get you this hot, I would have told you about them a long time ago. You know, my SAT scores are probably around here somewhere…”  
  
There’s a layer of dust on top of the comforter, so Shawn pulls away long enough to yank it off the bed and toss it into the corner so that they’re left with the at least semi-clean sheets underneath. He kicks off his shoes as Lassie tumbles them both onto the bed, and huh, it really does feel kind of awesomely dirty to being doing this in his childhood bedroom, where if he opens his eyes he can see toys and albums and pictures of him and Gus as kids.  
   
“Take off your shirt,” Lassiter rumbles in his ear, and as soon as he does, Lassiter’s mouth is planting a trail of kisses across his chest, pausing to bite at first one nipple, then the other. Shawn gasps and arches underneath him, pulling at Lassie’s shirt because he wants to feel them skin-to-skin.   
  
There’s something unusually desperate and hungry about the way Lassie is kissing him, but Shawn can’t stop to think about it right now. All he can concentrate on at this moment is how amazing this feels, how hard he is, how he just wants to grind against Lassie until he comes.  Lassie, though, apparently has other ideas.  
  
“Do you have a condom?” he asks, and Shawn does a full body shudder at the thought of getting fucked on this bed.   
  
“In my wallet,” he whispers, and Lassie’s hands are groping at his ass, finding the wallet in his jeans, pulling it out and flipping it open. “No lube, though,” he adds a little forlornly. Well, it’s entirely possible there’s still a bottle of the stuff in the nightstand, but he’d rather not take his chances with 20 year old lube. “Wait,” he says, thinking back to what he’s seen in the house. “There’s lotion in the bathroom,” he pauses then adds “I really do not want to think about why dad might have had lotion in the bathroom.”  
  
Lassiter kisses him again, then stands up. “I’ll get it. You, take the rest of your clothes off.”  
  
Shawn grins and obeys. He has no idea what has spurred Lassie on tonight, but he’s not about to complain. Once he’s naked, he squirms a little on the sheets, feeling both vulnerable and excited.  Lassiter’s back a minute later, lotion in hand, shucking his own clothes before getting back onto the bed, and for the first time since kissing Shawn downstairs, he seems a little unsure.   
  
“How do you want to do this? Do you want to –”  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me, Lassie?” Shawn interrupts, leaning up a little so he can whisper in his ear “I want you to screw me into the mattress,” making Lassiter blush a little, which Shawn finds hilarious given what they’re doing.   
  
Minutes later, Shawn is panting as Lassie works lotion-coated fingers into him. He licks at Lassiter’s collarbone, then bites down, feeling Lassie’s cock twitch against him at the sensation.  He reaches for the condom and rips open the little foil packet then smoothes it onto Lassiter.  
  
“Roll over,” Lassiter tells him, and he can’t help it, he moans a little just from the thought of how good this is going to feel, how good it always feels. Lassiter slides into him so painstakingly slowly that Shawn tries to push back onto him, only to find that Lassie is holding his hips so hard that he can’t move, not even forward so that he can give his aching cock some relief by rubbing against the mattress; he just has to take it at the pace Lassie is setting. He smacks a hand down onto the mattress in frustration and hears a choked laugh from behind him.   
  
“Something wrong, Spencer?”  
  
“You’re a mean, mean, man,” Shawn says, drawing in a sharp breath as Lassie finally, finally hits his sweet spot.   
  
“You love it,” Lassiter says, pulling almost all the way back out before pushing in again, just as slow as before.   
  
“Yeah,” Shawn agrees, his voice muffled by the pillow that he’s buried his face into. He turns his head to one side so he can breathe better, opens his eyes and sees one of his Transformers sitting on the edge of the dresser, which reminds him again of where they’re doing this, as Lassiter kisses up his spine, stopping to bite down gently at the nape of his neck, then loosens the grip on his hips so that he can reach around and wrap one hand around Shawn’s cock.  
  
“What was it you said you wanted?” Lassiter asks, his voice a little shaky, but somehow still authoritative. “For me to screw you into the mattress?”  
  
“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Shawn moans, as Lassiter proceeds to do just that. He claws at the sheet and babbles a stream of curse words into the pillow, idly thinking that if his teenage self could see what he was doing in this bed now, he would…well, he would probably be kind of terrified, to be honest, but that’s why age and experience can be good things, in Shawn’s opinion.   
  
When he comes, it feels like it goes on forever, the pleasure tearing through him so sharply that he thinks he might actually have blacked out for a few seconds, and afterwards he feels hollowed out and boneless. The lotion smells like coconut, and he has a feeling that he’s never going to be able to drink a pina colada or eat a coconut cream pie again without getting an erection.  
  
Lassiter is lying beside him, trying to catch his breath; Shawn doesn’t even remember him pulling out, and has no idea if he came before or after Shawn did. He rolls over so that he can kiss Lassie’s throat, tasting sweat and feeling Lassiter’s rapid pulse.  
  
“Holy shit, Lassie,” he sighs in contentment, his eyelids suddenly so heavy that he can’t keep them open anymore. He should totally move, he’s half lying in the wet spot, but even so he feels so comfortable, so peaceful, even his usually busy brain feeling blissed out and relaxed, that all he can do is close his eyes and snuggle a little closer into Lassie and fall asleep.   
  
_GUS: It won’t let me log in. And I have to take my exam by today!_  
 _SHAWN: Really? That’s probably because I just took it for you._  
 _GUS: What?_  
 _SHAWN: Yeah. And I can’t believe you’re still using “chocolate thunder” as your password._  
 _GUS: You took my exam?_  
 _SHAWN: A little harder than the river raft test, way easier than the Secret Service test. Any of the questions I didn’t know. I just answered “C”. Right?_  
 _(Episode 3.07, Talk Derby to Me)_


	8. Chapter 8

Gus texts him the next morning to say that he’s not going to be able to come out to the house that day until after lunch, which Shawn knows is code for “I got lucky last night”.  So did I, he thinks with a slightly goofy grin, looking over at Lassie, who is eating toast at the table across from him.  
  
“What?” Lassiter asks grumpily, which Shawn puts down to him not having had enough coffee yet. Caffeine dependence is such a sad thing.  
  
“Gus isn’t joining us until this afternoon,” he says. “I think he’s spending the morning with his new girl, after spending the night with her, if you know what I mean.”  
  
Lassiter doesn’t reply, biting tersely into his toast and looking at the headlines on the Sunday newspaper in front of him.  
  
“What I mean,” Shawn says loudly, because Lassie is totally ruining his good mood, “is that last night Gus did the no pants dance. He knocked boots, got jiggy with it, made the beast with two backs, slipped her the tickle pickle, pulled the pin on his love grenade, plowed her fertile fields –”  
  
“Okay, okay!” Lassiter interrupts, and Shawn is pleased to see that he’s laughing, “I think I get the point.”  
  
“Good,” Shawn says. “I was afraid I was being too subtle.”  
  
The night before, he had slept for almost two hours after basically passing out after sex, and had awakened to find Lassie watching him with his blue, blue eyes and an inscrutable expression. He had apologized for sleeping for so long, which Lassiter had brushed off, saying he had just woke up himself. Shawn had a feeling that was a lie, but not anything worth calling Lassie on. Anyway, he was starving and he knew exactly what he wanted, it was just a matter of getting up, getting dressed, and going to the Thai restaurant for coconut curry chicken.  
  
Afterwards, they had gone back to Lassie’s place and watched _Saturday Night Live_ , until Lassie went to bed, leaving Shawn to his own devices, his usual insomnia compounded by the long nap he had taken.  
  
 _Double Indemnity_ had been on TCM, so he had watched Barbara Stanwyck being devious while playing Plants vs. Zombies on his phone. After that, there was nothing else on TV so he had gone back to Lassie’s desk, where he hit the jackpot when, tucked into a cubbyhole, he found a wallet-sized picture of Lassie and Mrs. Lassie on their wedding day. Lassie looked ridiculously young and happy, and was sporting the terrible, terrible moustache that Shawn vaguely remembered from the first time he had seen him on the night his dad had arrested him. Any woman who would let Lassie get married with that moustache was obviously wrong for him, Shawn figured.  
  
Nothing else he finds that night can quite compare with that, not even the figure skating magazine, though that was certainly a delightful discovery as well, so he had looked at Lassie’s case file again, making a few mental notes on minor discrepancies in the witness statements before slamming the file shut and reminding himself once again that he wasn’t a detective anymore. Then he had gone to bed, moving as quietly as he could so as not to disturb Lassiter, and lying in the dark for another hour until finally drifting off into a thankfully dreamless sleep.  
  
Now, over orange juice and fruit loops, he’s plotting the rest of the day, still intent on getting through as much of the house as possible.  
  
“You can finish with the garage, and I’ll finish the living room. Gus and I will tackle my room when he gets there – half the stuff in there probably belongs to him, so he should have a chance to look through it, and besides I don’t think I can be with you in that room again and get any work done,” he says, leering a little which makes Lassiter look both embarrassed and pleased. He hesitates a little before asking “Would you mind starting in my dad’s room? Maybe pack the clothes away? I’ll help out, but last time I went in there, I…it wasn’t good.”  
  
“Whatever you want,” Lassiter says with a shrug. “I know you want to finish it up as quickly as you can,” he adds, not looking at Shawn.  
  
“Right you are!” he says cheerfully, trying to ignore the way Lassie’s sitting with his shoulders hunched up and the crease in his brow all furrowed and worried looking. He knows something is going on with Lassiter, but he hasn’t figured out what it is yet, and he thinks it’s probably best to keep quiet until he does. Lassie can be so reserved and introverted, and Shawn is still trying to learn how to get a handle on how best to deal with his moods. It was easier when he only saw Lassie at the station or when they were working on cases, but now that they’re living under the same roof, he’d like to avoid actively annoying him most of the time, and he thinks giving him his privacy in working through whatever’s bothering him is the least he can do.  
  
Maybe, Shawn thinks bleakly, he’s finally reached the end of his rope with Shawn and is trying to figure out a way to let him down easy. Oh god, he realizes, that’s probably why Lassie is so on board with helping him finish up with the house, because he’s decent enough not to break up with him until after he’s done with that monumental project.  
  
He pushes the thought to the back of his mind, reminding himself that he always knew it would end with Lassiter dumping him, and that he resolved weeks ago, before even coming back to Santa Barbara, to just enjoy it until then, because he doesn’t think he’s ever going to have anything like this again. He needs to remember to live in the moment, because it’s what he does best, and not worry about the future, because it’s going to come whether he wants it to or not.  
  
Still, even with that thought fresh in his mind, he can’t stop himself from asking “Is something wrong, Lass? You’re going to give yourself wrinkles with all the intense frowning you’re doing this morning.”  
  
Lassiter does a poor job of trying to smooth out his features. “No, just thinking about work.”  
  
This is such a blatant lie that Shawn is almost disappointed in him for even bothering to say it, but he just shrugs and lets it go. It’s not like he wants to rush Lassie into breaking up with him anyway.  
  
Going back to work at the house is better in some ways, worse in others. It distracts him from thinking about his inevitable upcoming single status, but unlike yesterday, he can’t seem to focus his thoughts today to keep him from being overwhelmed by memories.  Looking at the couch in the living room dredges up one of his earliest memories, of being sandwiched between his parents while they watched something on television. _The Jeffersons_ , he thinks, mom and dad laughing over George and Weezy and he was laughing too, even though he wasn’t old enough to really understand what was so funny, just happy to be a part of whatever it was that was making them both smile.  
  
It’s not even the same couch, much less the same TV, so he doesn’t know why that memory popped up out of his subconscious. Randomly, he probably thinks he should call his mom, but he’s not even sure what to say to her. The few conversations they’ve had since Henry died have been tense and sad, and he genuinely has no idea how to broach the topic of his relationship with Lassiter without having her psychoanalyze him. Better to put it off for now.  
  
Gus shows up that afternoon with a new-girlfriend glow about him that makes Shawn instantly suspicious, because poor Gus has legendarily bad taste in women.  
  
“So, tell me about this vixen,” Shawn says.  
  
“Her name is Natasha—”

“That can’t possibly be her real name,” Shawn scoffs. “It’s too sexy.”  
  
“It’s her real name, Shawn. She’s working at the mall while taking business classes at the community college. She wants to open her own men’s clothing store.” Gus grins happily. “She said she was drawn to me because she likes my sense of style.”  
  
“When do I get to meet her?”  
  
“You met her at the mall the other day,” Gus points out. “You were the one who got me her number in the first place!”  
  
“No, I mean REALLY meet her. I have to check her out and make sure she’s good enough for you.”  
  
“Later. I don’t want you to scare her off.”  
  
“I would never!”  
  
“Whatever, Shawn. Are we going to clean out your bedroom or what?”  
  
“Yeah, let’s get to it,” Shawn says as they go up the stairs together. When he opens the door, Gus looks around in confusion.  
  
“Did you already get started in here? Why is the comforter on the floor?”  
  
Shawn smirks at him. “Lassie and I devirginized my bed last night.”  
  
“Shawn! I didn’t need to know that!”  
  
“Didn’t need to know what?” asks Lassiter, who has come up behind them.  
  
Shawn gives him an angelic smile. “Nothing. You must be done with the garage, huh?”  
  
“Yeah, I was going to start on Henry’s room. Are you sure you want me to do that without you?”  
  
“Yeah. Gus and I will probably be busy in here for a while.”  
  
Gus opens the closet and gasps, making both Shawn and Lassiter turn to look at him.  
  
“Shawn!” he demands, grabbing something off the shelf in the closet and waving it in the air. “Is this my She-Ra action figure? The one you told me Bobby Denton stole? The one I kept in mint condition in the packaging? What’s she doing out of the package, Shawn? Where’s her battle axe?”  
  
Shawn turns back to Lassiter. “Yeah, it might be a very long time before we’re done in here.”  
  
“Oookay,” Lassiter says, looking at Gus a little worriedly. “I’ll be down the hall if you need me.”  
  
They work for the rest of the afternoon, him and Gus squabbling over the ownership of various items as they go, which works in keeping his mind busy and distracted enough that he can’t obsess too much about how he’s digging through the artifacts of his childhood. He finds that there’s not that much that he wants to keep – the pictures of him and Gus of course, and his sweet album collection, but not much else.  
  
He and Gus are in the midst of an epic Thundercats action figure battle when Lassiter comes back in a few hours later.  
  
“Lassie! Come join us! We need somebody to play Mumm-Ra so we can defeat the ancient evil!”  
  
“No thanks,” Lassiter says. “I have to go in to the station for a while. I might be late.”  
  
After he leaves, Shawn and Gus get back to work, finishing the job of packing up the room. Shawn feels a pang of grief as he surveys the now bare room, devoid of his toys and pictures and assorted crap, so before it can develop into anything more intense he pulls Gus out into the hallway, down the stairs, and outside, saying that he won’t survive another hour without some chimichangas.  
  
Lassiter doesn’t get home from work until nearly 1:00 in the morning. Shawn is still awake, of course. So far he’s fooled around on Lassie’s laptop, finding a MacGyver fanfiction archive that he immediately bookmarks, made an ill-advised attempt to bake cookies stuffed with gummi bears, spent half an hour scrubbing the baking pan and trying to rid the kitchen of the burnt gummi bear smell, and studied the Most Wanted pictures on the wall in the dining room (Lassiter still hasn’t noticed the stick figure drawing of the two of them that Shawn had tacked up a few nights previous) in lieu of looking at Lassie’s case file, which he must have taken to work with him.  
  
“What’s that awful smell?” Lassiter asks immediately upon entering the apartment, wrinkling his nose in a way that Shawn probably shouldn’t find adorable.  
  
“Not all culinary experiments can be masterpieces,” Shawn says defensively. “So, was there a break in the case? Did you arrest any bad guys tonight?”  
  
“No,” Lassiter scowls. “What do you care, anyway?”  
  
Shawn blinks, stung a little not only by the words, but by the bitterness in Lassiter’s voice. Reminding himself that tact is not among Lassie’s strengths, he says “You seem stressed. And speaking of smells, I can tell by the gunpowder smell that you’ve been at the firing range tonight. Trying to work out some frustration? Want me to help with that?” He emphasizes the question by grabbing hold of Lassiter’s belt and pulling him close.  
  
But Lassiter steps away. “I have to be back at the station early tomorrow. I just want to get some sleep.”  
  
“Sure,” Shawn says, trying not to feel hurt. “I’ll just go watch some TV, then.”  
  
Lassiter scrubs a hand across his face; he does look tired, Shawn thinks, and also kind of sad.  
  
“Fine. Good night.”  
  
After Lassiter disappears into the bedroom, Shawn stretches out on the couch, channel-flipping until he comes to an episode of _Three’s Company_ on TV Land. Mr. Roper is calling Jack a Tinkerbell and making a limp wrist motion with his hand. Shawn rolls his eyes but sets the remote down. Maybe the bad eighties hair and fashion and silly double entendres will help him feel more cheerful.  
  
“Shawn, wake up! It’s time for school!”  
  
At the sound of his dad’s voice, Shawn opens his eyes to find himself in his bedroom. He stumbles out of bed, stepping on something pointy which he leans over to pick up. It’s one of his Thundercats. Hadn’t he and Gus put that in a box recently? Why would they do that? His Thundercats collection is awesome!  
  
The door opens and Henry pokes his head in. “Hurry up, kid! You’re going to be late!”  
  
“I’m coming!” he snaps irritably.  
  
He goes through the door to follow his dad and finds himself in the police station.  Something’s going on; the place is bustling.  He sees McNab and tries to wave him down, calling his name, but Buzz blows past without looking at him. Mr. Roper is standing over in the corner, and when he sees Shawn looking at him he smirks and does his limp-wristed hand gesture. Shawn ignores him in favor of Juliet, who is at her desk.  She jumps to her feet when she sees him.  
  
“Shawn! Have you divined anything? Please tell me you have some answers.” She looks upset, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen like she’s been crying. He’s only seen her like that once before, but he can’t quite remember when it was.  
  
“Do we have a case?” he asks her, puzzled.  
  
Her expression turns angry. “How can you ask that? I should have known you wouldn’t take this seriously. If you’re not going to help, get out of my way.”  
  
She storms past him. He calls after her in confusion, but she doesn’t turn around.  
  
He sees Henry then, walking past the Chief’s office and he runs to catch up to him.  
  
“Dad, wait up! What’s going on? What’s wrong with Jules?”  
  
Henry doesn’t answer, just keeps walking at a fast enough clip that Shawn can’t seem to catch up. He disappears around a corner and Shawn follows, straight into the morgue. Woody is there, openly sobbing.  
  
“Woodman, what’s wrong?” Shawn asks worriedly, but Woody just shakes his head, seemingly inconsolable.  
  
“Over here, Shawn” comes his dad’s voice, and Shawn hurries to catch up. Henry is standing over a body covered with a sheet on an examination table.  
  
“You need to look for clues,” Henry says, and whips back the sheet to reveal Lassiter’s body, cold and still, a Y-incision marring his chest.  
  
Shawn reels back in horror, his mouth opening to scream, shout, cry, _something_ , but no sound emerges, he can’t breathe, can’t move.  
  
“Focus, Shawn!” Henry snaps. “Now, how many hats?”  
  
Shawn awakens to find his face pressed against the rug; he’s fallen off of the sofa, and while he’s grateful to be awake, he still can’t breathe. He pushes himself into a sitting position and tips his head back against the sofa, willing himself to calm down and breathe deeply.  
  
“Spencer?” Lassiter comes out of the bedroom, gun hand “What was that noise?”  
  
Shawn can’t answer. His heart is racing and his chest hurts and he feels like he’s being smothered. Seeing him on the floor, Lassiter crouches down beside him, setting his gun on the table and rubbing his shoulder soothingly.  
  
“Okay, it’s okay Shawn,” he says gently. “Relax.”  
  
More than anything else, Lassie’s presence calms him. Not dead, not on an autopsy table. He shudders at the memory of the nightmare, wishing he could unsee what his imagination had conjured up. After a few minutes, the tightness in his chest eases and he can breathe again. He can feel Lassie’s hand still on his shoulder, a warm, steady presence.  
  
Raising his head, he says quietly “I am really fucking sick of this.”  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
“God, no.”  
  
Lassiter stands up, and Shawn regrets the loss of contact but doesn’t say anything, pulling himself up to sit on the sofa and stretching his legs out in front of him.  
  
“Can I get you anything? Water, something to eat?”  
  
“No thanks, Lassie. I’m sorry I woke you.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” he says gruffly, hesitating before asking again, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? It might help.”  
  
“I said no, didn’t I?” Shawn snaps. He wants to forget the fucking dream, not relive it.  
  
“Fine,” Lassiter says, and goes back into the bedroom. He doesn’t quite slam the door, but it’s a close thing. Shawn winces but doesn’t move from his spot on the sofa.  



	9. Chapter 9

  
The next morning, Lassiter is up and out the door by 6:30 and Shawn barely sees him. He takes a long shower, trying to wash away all of his negativity. He should talk to Lassie, find out what’s going on in that paranoid brain of his, but at the same time he wonders if there’s really any point in doing so. This was never going to work. Maybe if it had happened a few years ago, if he and Lassiter had ended up together instead of he and Juliet, maybe they could have made it work. Before Henry died, and left Shawn feeling like a shell of his former self.  
  
He goes to the courthouse for work where he’s met by Hornstock and told that the plaintiff in the case wants to settle, and that he’s about to go into a meeting to hammer out the details.  
  
“Come by the office tomorrow and I’ll have a check for you,” he says. “If you’re interested, there’s another trial I could use you on starting in a couple of weeks.”  
  
Shawn shrugs. “Maybe. I’m not sure if I’m going to be in town much longer.” Even as he says it, he knows he’s not coming back to work here. Being a jury consultant had been interesting for a few days, but he’s already gotten bored with it. He hates having to get dressed every morning and come to the same place and sit for hours. The time has come for yet another career change.  
  
He’s so absorbed in his thoughts that he isn’t paying attention as he walks through the courthouse, so that it’s a surprise when he hears his name being called and turns to see Juliet.  
  
“Shawn, what are you doing here?”  
  
“I’ve been working as a jury consultant for Adam Hornstock, but the case just got settled out of court, so I was heading out.”  
  
“Does that mean you’re free right now? Maybe we could grab some coffee and talk for a few minutes?”  
  
“Sure Jules,” he says, a little surprised that she would willingly spend time with him.  
  
They go to a coffee shop across the street, where Shawn gets a strawberry banana smoothie and Juliet gets a black coffee. While they’re ordering their drinks, Shawn takes in how serious and professional Juliet looks now. She’s upgraded her suits and is wearing boots that can only be described as “kickass”. It’s more than just a cosmetic makeover though; there’s a more confident air about her than he remembers, a self-assuredness that hadn’t been present before. He idly thinks that if they were dating now, she wouldn’t let him get away with half the crap that he used to get away with.  
  
Neither of them seems to know quite what to say once they sit down with their drinks. Shawn, who is usually so good at filling awkward silences, is reluctant to say anything until he has a better feel for Juliet’s mood towards him is.  
  
“I missed you,” she finally says, breaking the silence. “I missed the way you made me laugh. I’ve never dated anyone else who made me laugh the way you did.”  
  
“Jules, I missed you too. I –”  
  
She interrupts him, saying “You really messed me up for a while, Shawn.”  
  
He flinches and looks down at the ground. “I’m so sorry,” he starts to say, but she interrupts him again.  
  
“No, I didn’t say that to make you apologize again. I just need for you to understand that it really screwed me up, finding out that somebody I trusted had been lying to me all along. You would think I would be used to it after growing up with my dad, but…” she shakes her head. “I thought I was smarter than that, but even when I suspected the truth, I still couldn’t reconcile it with the idea that you were lying to me. Afterwards, I thought about quitting, you know. I figured that anyone as gullible as I was must be the worst detective in the world.”  
  
This might actually be Hell, Shawn thinks, having the consequences of his light-hearted deception laid out so starkly, seeing the hurt he caused to someone he loved. He wishes he could get up and leave, but he knows that he owes Jules the courtesy of sitting and listening.  
  
“Carlton is actually the one who helped me realize that I could still be a good cop, that this might even make me a _better_ cop because I’ll never be that naïve again.”  
  
“Jules,” he finally manages to say, “it was never supposed to be like that. It just got out of control. If I could go back in time and change the way things happened…”  
  
“I know,” she says, and finally graces him with a small smile.  
  
Just when he thinks he might actually escape from this conversation without any more damage inflicted, Jules says “You know, when you told me that you were bisexual, I thought…well, I’m not sure what I thought. That you had made out with a few cute boys when you were younger and travelling the country, I guess. I never imagined you might end up in a relationship with another man, much less Lassiter. I had no idea he even…” she trails off uncertainly.  
  
“Batted switch-hitter?” Shawn suggests.  
  
“Exactly. Just another example of my naiveté,” she says, but she’s still smiling so Shawn relaxes a little.  
  
“Lassie kept it pretty well repressed. It was probably better for his career to embrace his hetero side, you know?”  
  
She nods. “But what about now?”  
  
“Eh, I’m never down at the station anymore,” Shawn says with a shrug, “and as you well know, Lassie’s not one to talk about his personal life, so I don’t think it ever really comes up.”  
  
“I know it’s none of my business, but I never would have guessed that Carlton was your type. Or that you were his, for that matter.”  
  
Shawn grins at her. “I’m everyone’s type, Jules. It’s my irrepressible charm. And Lassie…he’s like a mystery wrapped in an enigma trapped in a bad suit. There aren’t many people who can surprise me, but he does. I never in a million years thought he would come looking for me.”  
  
Juliet tilts her head thoughtfully. “So, he swept you off your feet, is that it?”  
  
“Something like that, but,” Shawn adds awkwardly, “it’s more than just that. I like his loyalty, and his sense of justice, and that when he doesn’t get in his own way, he’s a really good detective. And I like his secret love of ponies and ice skating and the way he dresses up and plays Civil War.”  
  
Juliet looks worried now. “Just, be careful with him Shawn. You weren’t around for what happened with Marlowe, but her leaving really crushed him. He had such high expectations for that relationship. Try not to break his heart, okay?”  
  
Thinking of the almost-slammed door that morning, Shawn sighs. “You don’t have to worry about that, Jules. I think it’s more likely that he’s going to break mine. Hey,” he says to change the subject slightly, “if you want to know something that would make him really happy, it would be for you to call him. He misses you.”  
  
“Have you met his new partner?”  
  
“Yeah. So far, it’s not a match made in heaven.”  
  
“I’m going out of town for a federal law enforcement conference this afternoon, and I’ll be gone until the end of the week, but when I get back I promise I’ll call him.”  
  
“Thanks, I know that would mean a lot to him. So,” he continues, taking in her relaxed glow and the love bite he can see peeking above the edge of her blouse at her collarbone, “are you going to tell me about your new boyfriend?”  
  
“How did you…never mind, I don’t want to know. He’s a DA, and that’s all I’m telling you for now. Maybe later, if things work out, you’ll get to meet him.” She looks down at her watch. “I should go. I have to go to the office to pick up some things, then finish packing for my trip.”  
  
She stands up and he follows her lead, wrapping his arms around her tight when she hugs him.  
“Bye, Shawn. I’ll see you when I get back.”  
  
“Yeah,” he says softly, hopeful that he’ll still be around to see her again.  
  
After she leaves, he pulls out his phone and texts Gus to see if he wants to hang out later. Gus calls a few minutes later.  
  
“Tomorrow I have a date with Natasha, but tonight would be good. I want to see that new movie with Charlize Theron.”  
  
“Your crush on her is bordering on unhealthy, but yeah, I’m in. Soooo, another date with Natasha, huh? What kind of debauchery are you getting up to tonight?”  
  
“If you must know, she’s cooking dinner for me.”  
  
“So the debauchery will be for dessert?”  
  
“Shawn! There will be no debauchery. There might be, uh, respectful handholding.”  
  
Shawn starts laughing. “ _Handholding_? Really, Gus? You and I are so different. Personally, I like it when Lassie skips holding my hand and instead grabs hold of my—”  
  
“Shawn! Stop trying to shock me! I can accept that you and Carlton have sex. I would just rather not know the details. I’m a gentleman.”  
  
“I’m sorry buddy, I didn’t mean to sully your thoughts. If you like, you can pretend that when Lassie and I are together all we do is stare meaningfully into each other’s eyes.”  
  
“Whatever, Shawn. I should get back to work. I’ll catch up with you about the movie after I get off, okay?”  
  
Without a job to keep him occupied and with Lassie and Gus both at work, Shawn finds himself at loose ends. He starts walking, enjoying the warm, sun-soaked atmosphere around him, not thinking about anything in particular, and finds himself some time later standing in front of the former Psych office.  
  
He misses it, misses it like crazy actually, which is a new feeling for him, because he’s always been a guy who enjoyed moving from one job to another without looking back. But with Psych, it was like he had found his calling, a way to use his talents and everything his dad had taught him without being tied to a career, a desk, a boss, all of the things he instinctively rebelled against. He had loved helping people and catching criminals, and he had almost never been bored. He misses being with Gus every day, and with working with Lassie and Jules. As much as he’s still reeling from Henry’s death, there’s a part of him that’s also still grieving the loss of his dream job.  
  
He has to walk away after a few minutes, unwilling to look any longer at the drab white letters on the window advertising the Dolman  & Sons Insurance Company.  
  
He keeps walking, and without really meaning to ends up at the scene of the murder that Lassiter and McIntyre have been investigating, which he’s read all of the case files on during his bouts of insomnia. The murder had occurred in an alley, and he can’t help but check it out, curious to see the actual layout of the scene that he’s read so much about. He knows from the crime scene photos where the victim was and based on that, where the murderer had to have been, but something about the site seems off to him. He scans the entire alley, looking for anything out of the ordinary, and his gaze lands on what looks like a hole in a wall. Like a bullet hole, in fact, and after examining it for a minute, he’s almost certain that’s what it is, though the placement of it is not at all consistent with where the murder presumably took place. Of course, for all he knows, that bullet hole could have been here for years.  
  
And anyway, what the hell is he doing here? He’s not a detective anymore.  
  
He checks his phone and finds a text from Lassiter saying that he’s going to be working late, so he texts back that he’s going to a movie with Gus, then starts walking towards Gus’s apartment to meet him when he gets off from work.  
  
“I don’t understand why you walked all over town in those shoes in the first place,” Gus says, looking mildly annoyed. It’s a couple of hours later, and Shawn and Gus are in the Blueberry, headed for Lassiter’s place so that Shawn can make a much needed change in his footwear.  
  
“I didn’t plan it. It just sort of happened. Talking to Jules made me all intersected.”  
  
“You mean introspective. And no, you have not heard it both ways.”  
  
“Whatever, man. It’ll just take a minute for me to change my shoes. I can’t wear these all night, they’re killing me.”  
  
When they walk into the condo, Shawn is surprised to see that not only is Lassiter there, he’s not alone. Detective McIntyre is there as well, looking over Lassie’s impressively compiled case file for the murder they’ve been working on.  
  
“Lassie, I thought you were working late tonight.”  
  
“We are,” he says, gesturing to the papers in front of him, “but we needed a change of scenery. The station was a madhouse. I thought you and Guster were going to a movie.”  
  
“Yeah, we just had to make a pit stop first. I hate these shoes.”  
  
“I told you Shawn,” Gus says, “that if they hurt in the store, they’ll hurt forever. I don’t know why you never trust me when it comes to matters of haberdashery.”  
  
“When I figure out what that means, I’ll decide whether or not to trust you in regards to it,” Shawn says, then switches gears to address McIntyre. “Detective, this is my associate, Professor Horatio Flava Flav Honeypot. Professor, this is Lassie’s new partner, Detective Joey – excuse me – Joseph McIntyre.”  
  
“Professor,” McIntyre says politely, looking bemused and reaching over to shake Gus’s hand. Shawn sees Lassiter roll his eyes, but he doesn’t bother to issue a correction.  
  
Turning to Shawn, McIntyre says “I didn’t realize when we met last week that you used to work at the police station. I overheard a couple of the guys this week mention your name in association with the Yin and Yang case.”  
  
“Yeah,” Shawn says with a casual wave of his hand, “I was instrumental in stopping Santa Barbara’s most notorious serial killer team. No big deal.”  
  
“Your modesty is so refreshing,” Lassiter mutters, and Shawn grins at him.  
  
“Is it true that you’re psychic?”  
  
The question makes Shawn hesitate for only a moment. “I see things that other people can’t see,” he replies.  
  
“And you believe this, Lassiter?”  
  
Lassiter shrugs. “Spencer has proven his abilities on many occasions.”  
  
“I didn’t realize you were so credulous,” McIntyre says, and Lassiter’s spine stiffens like he’s been electrocuted.  
  
Before Lassiter can explode, Shawn fakes a laugh and says “Lassie? Credulous? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, Horatio?”  
  
Gus fake laughs too. “Absolutely ridiculous! Why Detective Lassiter is the most skeptical person I know! He doesn’t even believe in things he should, like global warming and ghosts!”  
  
Lassiter scowls. “I do so believe in g—“  
  
“Detective McIntyre,” Shawn says in his most pedantic and annoying tone, interrupting Lassiter before he can defend himself, “Lassie here has never believed that I’m psychic. I can’t tell you how often his negative energy has disturbed my psychic visions. However, even he can’t deny my astonishing success rate.”  
  
“Which begs the question,” McIntyre says, “of why you’re not still consulting with the police department.”  
  
“All good things must come to an end,” Shawn says enigmatically, because he doesn’t really have a better answer lined up.  
  
“And it’s funny, from what the guys at the station were saying, I was under the impression that you and Detective Lassiter didn’t really get along very well, but you’re living with him now?”  
  
“Ha ha, those guys down at the station have a lot of time on their hands to gossip, huh? Lassie here was kind enough to offer me a roof over my head when I came back into town after taking a psychic sabbatical. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to change my shoes. Professor Honeypot will be cranky if we miss the trailers.”  
  
“They’re part of the movie experience, Shawn. I don’t know how many times I have to explain that to you. Now hurry up. I want popcorn.”  
  
When he gets home from the movie, Lassiter and McIntyre are still working. Shawn is not interested in the case. He. Is. Not. But he can’t help but glance at the crime scene photos that Lassiter and McIntyre have spread out on the dining room table, and when he thinks back on the case files and the bullet hole in the alley, it’s like the pieces of the puzzle just fall into place. It’s subtle, but it’s right there in the pictures.  
  
“Hey Lassie,” Shawn says, interrupting Lassiter, who is reading one of the witness statements aloud to McIntyre, “Can I see you in the kitchen for a minute?”  
  
Lassie glares at him. “Kind of busy right now, Spencer.”  
  
“Yeah, but…”  
  
“Later!” Lassiter says impatiently, and something in Shawn snaps. He had sworn to himself that he was never going to do anything like this again, but…after all these years, Lassie should really know better than to ignore him. Shawn doesn’t like being ignored. Maybe Lassiter needs a reminder.  
  
“OOOOHHHHHHHH,” Shawn moans, making it sounds both as pornographic and as theatrical as he possibly can. He puts a hand to his forehead and swoons against the table. “I’m getting something! Something big!”  
  
McIntyre looks horrified. “What’s wrong with him?” he gasps.  
  
Lassiter sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “He’s having a ‘vision’.” Shawn is charmed by the way he can hear the quotation marks Lassie’s put around the word “vision”, but he doesn’t break character. He is a professional, after all.  
  
“I’m seeing…Courtney Love! Alice in Wonderland!”  
  
“Crazy women taking hallucinogenic substances?” Lassiter asks wearily.  
  
“Golf! Gophers! Shia LaBeouf!”  
  
“Wait,” McIntyre says. “Courtney Love was in Hole. Hole in one. Alice went down the rabbit hole.”  
  
“Yessss,” Shawn sighs, drawing the word out to make it sound as dirty as possible, while arching his back and doing a little hip wriggle. He knows it’s having the desired effect because Lassie’s ears have turned pink. “That’s right, Detective. I’m seeing a hole.”  
  
“I’m sure you’ve seen lots of holes, Spencer” Lassiter growls. McIntyre makes a suspicious choking noise as Shawn turns to look at Lassiter in amused disbelief.  
  
“Leaving aside my personal life,” he says, and now more than just Lassie’s ears are pink, “in this case, I’m seeing a particular hole. I’m sensing that you should check the walls in the alley where the body was found. Yes, I’m sensing something to do with the walls, but not near where the victim was. The clue is not where it should be.”  
  
Lassiter picks up a picture taken at the scene, the one that had caught Shawn’s eye earlier and peers at the alley and the angle of the body.  
  
“You’re saying there was another shot fired in the alley.”  
  
“That’s right,” Shawn says. “I’m sensing that you’ll find that it was made by the same gun that killed Garrison Smallwood.”  
  
“Are you saying that the murderer was standing on the other side of Smallwood?” McIntyre asks. “How is that even possible?”  
  
“Isn’t that what the drunk guy who was first on the scene said all along? That he heard someone behind him? I mean,” Shawn adds lamely, “that’s what I’m sensing.”  
  
“Spencer, have you been reading my case files?” Lassiter asks irritably.  
  
“Noooo,” Shawn says, looking away. It’s harder to lie to Lassie now than it used to be, and it’s not as if Lassie doesn’t know the truth anyway. “You know I get all of my information from psychic divination.”  
  
McIntyre stands up, packing away his files and pulling out his phone. “I’ll get a couple of guys from forensics to go with me back to the alley and we’ll take a look. You should take the rest of the night off Lassiter, I can call you if we find anything.” He turns to Shawn and gives him a searching look. “Mr. Spencer, that was…weird. But, good work. I think.” He flees hastily, with the air of a man who would like to forget what he’s seen.  
  
After the door closes behind McIntyre, Lassiter stands up and slowly advances on Shawn. “So, the ‘spirits’ are talking to you again?”  
  
Shawn skips back a step. Lassie looks kind of mad. It’s hot. “Just for tonight. It was a one-time performance.”  
  
“Performance is right. That was quite a little show you put on for McIntyre.”  
  
“Oh no, Lassie, the show was all for you. Did you have a favorite part?”  
  
Shawn feels the edge of the table pressing into his back. Nowhere left to run! He thinks giddily, as Lassiter leans toward him, flattening his hands on the table and effectively pinning Shawn in.  
  
“I liked the part where you found the clue we were missing,” he admits. “How did you do that?”  
  
“I was in that part of town today and couldn’t resist taking a look in the alley. So, is that the only part you liked?” Shawn asks, and rolls his hips forward to bump into Lassiter’s very obvious erection.  
  
Lassiter draws in a sharp breath but says “You prancing around like an idiot was as obnoxious as ever.”  
  
“Come on Lass, I know you had to like it a little bit. Reminded you of old times, didn’t it?”  
  
“You mean the old times when you endlessly stole my thunder and worked around the clock to embarrass me with your little ‘visions”? And anyway, didn’t you tell me that you were done being a detective?”  
  
“First of all,” Shawn says, a little breathlessly because Lassiter looming over him has never not turned him on, and also because it’s been _days_ , at least two, since they’ve done this and he’s dying for Lassie to touch him, “I never stole anything from you except a few pens. And any candy that you ever kept in your desk. Oh, and also a tie, but it was ugly Lassie, and I was doing you a favor.”  
  
“Spencer,” Lassiter growls, and presses in a little closer.  
  
“Second of all, I had to embarrass you with my visions, because it was the only way I was able to touch you any time I wanted to,” he says, demonstrating by reaching out to stroke his fingers across Lassie’s face, down his throat and too his chest, where he spreads his fingers out, then brings his other hand to his head in what he thinks of as his classic psychic pose and closes his eyes.  
  
“I’m seeing…trains! Tunnels! Cigars that are not actually cigars! And, oh!” he opens his eyes, so that he can better judge the reaction he’s getting, though the hardness pressed against his hip is encouraging,  
  
“I see you, thinking about dragging me off to one of the interrogation rooms after I’ve had one of my amazing visions because it drives you crazy that I can put my hands all over you and no one thinks anything of it, and you want to give me a taste of my own medicine where no one can see us.”  
  
He stretches up a little, so that his lips are a fraction of an inch away from Lassiter’s. “Isn’t that right, Lassie? How often did you think about that?”  
  
Lassiter closes the space between them, pressing his mouth against Shawn’s and Shawn licks into his mouth, feeling some of the tension of the past few days seep out of him, when suddenly Lassiter jerks away.  
  
“I can’t do this,” he says hoarsely, not looking at Shawn.  
  
“What?” Shawn asks, stunned.  
  
“I’m going to go take a shower.”  
  
Shawn knows his lust-fogged brain is slowing him down, but he has no idea what’s going on.  
  
“What the hell, Lassie?”  
  
“Look, I’m just not in the mood, okay?”  
  
“Really?” Shawn asks, looking pointedly at the erection tenting Lassiter’s pants. “Because from here, you certainly look like you’re in the mood.”  
  
Lassiter scowls at him. “I don’t take orders from my dick, Spencer,” and Shawn blinks, taken aback by the ferocity in his voice.  
  
“Lassiter, what the hell’s going on with you?”  
  
“Nothing you need to worry about. Maybe I just need some goddamn privacy.”  
  
Shawn gapes at him, trying to figure out how they jumped from what he thought was the start of a fun night to this, then realizes that he doesn’t even care how they got here, because now he’s pissed.  
  
“You know what?” Shawn says, trying not to let the anger and hurt he’s feeling seep into his voice, “I think I’ll go spend the night at Gus’s.”  
  
“Great,” Lassiter says, stony-faced. “The suspense has been killing me, wondering when you were going to leave.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” he replies, trying to match the coldness he hears in Lassiter’s tone. “I know better than to overstay my welcome.”  
  
He leaves before Lassiter can say anything else to break his heart, not even bothering to grab any of his stuff. He still has a key, he can come back tomorrow when Lassie is at work and remove all the traces that he was ever here. Lassiter won’t have to think about him again.


	10. Chapter 10

He gets on his motorcycle and drives around for a while, trying to remind himself that he always knew this was going to happen.

He finally does go to Gus’s, feeling worn down and depressed, needing a friendly face.

“Oh god, what happened?” Gus asks immediately upon seeing the expression on Shawn’s face.

Shawn walks over to the couch and drops onto it tiredly. “Lassie and I had a fight. We’re over. Finito.”

Gus comes over to sit on the other end of the couch. “You’re finito after one fight?” he asks, frowning mightily.

Shawn leans back against and closes his eyes, unwilling to face Gus’s distress when his own is so acute. “It’s not like it’s the first fight we’ve ever had, but I think it’s definitely the last. He pretty much told me to get out.”

“He told you that? Lassiter?” Gus sounds frankly disbelieving.

“Yeah, well it can’t be that much of a surprise,” Shawn laughs mirthlessly.

“Actually,” Gus says, “it is. We’re talking about Carlton Lassiter here. The man who kept trying to get his wife back for years after she left him. And he told me that Marlowe left him, not the other way around. Lassiter doesn’t break up with people.”

“Well, I guess I’m special,” Shawn says sadly.

“You need to talk to him.”

“I don’t think so, Gus. He made it pretty clear that he’s ready to see me go.”

“And what about you? Are you ready for it to be over?”

Shawn wraps his arms around one of the frou-frou pillows that Gus keeps on his couch and hugs it to his chest.

“I’ve known all along it was going to end this way, so whatever. I’m not surprised or anything.”

Gus sighs. “Shawn, when you look at Lassiter, it’s like you get little hearts in your eyes. It’s always been that way to some extent, but since you came back it’s like a million times worse.”

“Yeah, so, I’m crazy about him. So what? That doesn’t mean anything. You know he hasn’t told anyone except Jules about us, right? Which is cool! I wouldn’t want him to risk his career for me or anything. But the fact that he’s kept it secret is, you know, just evidence that he never expected it to last.”

“Shawn, I really think you need to talk to him. Carlton’s at least as emotionally stunted as you are. This was never going to be easy, but I still think you could make it work.”

“You’re emotionally stunted,” Shawn mutters in retaliation, then says “I’m not going to be that annoying boyfriend who doesn’t know when it’s over. I’m going to finish with the house in the next couple of days, get with Hornstock to find a real estate agent to handle the sale, and then I’m out of here.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gus go very, very still. “What do you mean by out of here?”

He shrugs. “Santa Barbara seems to be cursed for me these days. I can’t stay here anymore.”

“You can’t do this to me again, Shawn,” Gus says quietly.

Shawn turns to look at him, startled. “What?”

“I understand why you had to leave after your dad…after what happened with your dad. But you can’t just take off whenever you want for months or years at a time and think that everything will stay the same between us. I can’t stand to spend months not knowing where you are or how you’re doing, or if you’re even alive. I can’t do that again.”

Shawn feels like he can’t breathe, but he forces out his next words anyway. “What are you saying, Gus? Are you breaking up with me too? Because I don’t think I can handle that, I really don’t.”

Gus sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “I don’t know, Shawn. I can’t imagine you not being my best friend, but if you leave again like this, things will be different between us.”

“Come with me!” Shawn says imploringly. “You can sell pharmaceuticals anywhere! We’ll go any place you want to go, just name it.”

Gus shakes his head. “This is my home, Shawn. I don’t want to leave.”

“Please don’t do this to me, Gus,” Shawn begs. “I can take being shut out by anyone but you.”

“I’m not trying to shut you out, Shawn. You think I want that? But I can’t do this again. I can’t take the not knowing.”

Shawn staggers to his feet. “I have to get out of here,” he says flatly.

Gus jumps up after him. “Shawn, don’t –”

He holds up his hand to stop Gus from saying anything else. “Gus,” he says quietly, “I can’t take anymore tonight. I promise not to leave town without telling you, okay? But I have to go.”

Outside, on his motorcycle again, he realizes he’s shaking. He’s not in any state of mind to be driving around; he needs to go somewhere. A hotel, he thinks, or maybe a bar. Which is when he realizes that his wallet is still at Lassiter’s. Fuck. On a good night he can easily spend hours drinking at a bar without spending a dime, charming drinks out of patrons and waitresses alike with his easy smiles and quick wit, but this is the furthest thing possible from a good night.

Well. There’s still one place nearby that he can go. He does, after all, own a house.

It’s the first time he’s been to the house alone since that Sunday morning right after he came back into town, when he’d had a panic attack. This is probably a terrible idea, coming here when he feels like he’s going to break apart, but he doesn’t know where else to go.  
The house is eerily quiet, leaving too much room for Shawn’s thoughts. The TV is already gone, taken to Goodwill the weekend before, but thankfully there’s still a radio, so he cranks up some music as a distraction, not that he’s capable of being distracted right now.

His phone rings, and without looking to see who is calling he turns it off. It’s either Gus or Lassie, and he can’t deal with talking to either of them at the moment.

He had known it was only a matter of time until Lassie got tired of him, and still it had come as shock somehow. It was strange, he hadn’t realized how lonely he had been traveling around the country until Lassiter had shown up and it had been like a missing piece of himself had been restored. The thing with Lassiter is weird and shouldn’t make sense; they shouldn’t fit, but to Shawn it felt like they did, and now the prospect of going forward without Lassie makes his heart ache.

He can’t even bring himself to think about the possibility of losing Gus. That cannot happen. He can’t imagine staying in Santa Barbara with the way things are right now, but he’s going to have to figure something out, because a life without Gus as his always reliable best friend is not an option.

He remembers the first time Gus came home with him, how he’d been awed by Henry and envious of how Shawn didn’t have to share anything with a bossy older sister. They had spoken a shared language of cartoons and candy and toys, and the bond between them was immediate and eternal. Or, at least he hopes it is.

He flops down on the couch, grateful that it hasn’t been hauled away yet. He should do something. Make a plan for how to convince Gus to come with him. He can’t stay, Gus has to understand that.

Stupid, fucking Lassiter. Why had he even come after Shawn if he was only going to end it all so abruptly?

Too jittery to stay still, he jumps up off the couch and starts wandering around the house.

The kitchen is where his mom had sat him down one day and told him that she was leaving, something he had known was coming after years of fighting and icy silences. Her voice had broken when she told him, but she hadn’t ever let him see her cry.

He goes upstairs, into his bedroom, or at least what used to be his bedroom. Thinks about endless days with Gus, playing games and hatching schemes, then finds himself thinking about just a few nights ago in this room, Lassiter making him come so hard that he had passed out, and in frustration he punches the wall, which only succeeds in scraping his knuckles and making his hand hurt.

What had he expected? What was Lassiter supposed to do, put up with his moodiness and his nightmares and his insomnia forever? He had gone into this knowing that Lassie was not exactly burdened with an abundance of patience. The thing was, he himself had such a short attention span, that in the back of his mind, he thought that he might get bored with Lassie anyway, after they finished working out some of their sexual tension. Lassie was strange and uptight and cranky, but instead of getting tired of all that, Shawn found himself liking it. He had always liked that Lassiter called him on his crap and gave as good as he got, and even in the short amount of time that he had seen Lassie with Marlowe he had found his loyalty and protectiveness attractive, and now, for whatever reason, he finds the combination of all of Lassie’s odd little quirks along with all of his genuinely awesome qualities to be…perfect. Well, not actually perfect, but perfect for him.

There’s no point in obsessing over it. Lassie deserves someone who isn’t so much trouble, someone who can make him happy instead of making him worry all the time.

He takes a deep breath and goes into Henry’s room. Lassiter had packed away all of the clothes, but he hadn’t yet touched the items on top of the bureau, and Shawn goes over to pick up a picture of himself and Henry, taken when he was about 10 years old. It hadn’t been a special occasion or anything; his mom had a new camera that she wanted to try out, and he and his dad had been outside playing catch. Or, Shawn remembers ruefully, more accurately, Henry had been using a game of catch as a way to lecture Shawn on the importance of hand-eye coordination for police officers. It was one of the first steps in turning him into a precise shot with a gun. But still, he’d had fun that day, and that’s clearly reflected in the photograph, with him and Henry both sporting happy, genuine smiles.

He takes the picture with him when he leaves the room, starting down the stairs but pausing on the third step from the bottom. This had been where he was standing during what was possibly his worst fight ever with Henry, when he was seventeen and had chosen to stay with Madeline after the divorce. This was where he had told Henry that he hated him and that there was no fucking way he was ever going to be a cop, that the last thing he wanted was to be anything like his old man.

He doesn’t regret most of that, exactly; Henry had been a controlling son of a bitch as a father, and Shawn had been every bit as stubborn in his defiance. Most importantly of all, he still believes with all his heart that he was right: he would have hated being a cop. Even in the past few weeks, he’s seen some of the cases that Lassiter works on – rape and child abuse and domestic disturbances – cases that reveal all the ugly, evil shit seemingly normal people are capable of, and he’s grateful for how he doesn’t have to deal with that. As a “psychic investigator” he was able to pick and choose the kind of cases that interested him, and leave the crimes dealing with petty atrocities to cops like Juliet and Lassiter, who somehow had the capacity to cope with all of the cruelty they saw. What he wishes for now though is that sometime in the last few years, after he and Henry had reconciled, that he had somehow found a way to let his dad know that he loved him.

Sitting down on the step and looking at the picture, it hits him all at once how much he’s lost in the past year – his dad and Jules and Psych and now maybe Gus and Lassiter too – and for the first time since Henry’s funeral, he lets himself cry.


	11. Chapter 11

  
He’s awakened by a noise the next morning. It takes him a few seconds to remember where he is and why, sitting up on the sofa where he had fallen into a restless sleep in the early morning hours, and he can’t have been asleep for long because the sun is just barely up. He realizes that the sound that woke him was a car pulling into the driveway at the same time that the front door opens and he hears Lassiter’s voice.  
  
“Shawn! Are you here?”  
  
He stumbles off the sofa, coming face-to-face with Lassiter, who has just entered the room.   
  
“What are you doing here?” he asks, trying to keep any hint of hopefulness out of his voice.   
  
Lassie looks like hell, unshaven and still wearing the clothes he had been in the night before. He carries with him the unmistakable smell of whiskey.  
  
“Guster called me. He’s out of his mind worrying about you. He said he’s been calling you all night.”  
  
“How did you know I was here?”  
  
Lassiter pulls Shawn’s wallet out of his pocket and tosses it to him. “Give me a little fucking credit, Spencer. I am a detective.”  
  
“Great. You can tell Gus I’m fine. You know, you two are going to have to find something to talk about besides me now.”  
  
He turns his back to Lassiter, making his dismissal clear because he can’t take another fight this morning, not after the night he’s had, but instead of leaving, Lassiter drops down onto the sofa.  
  
“Shawn,” he asks wearily, “why did you tell Guster that I kicked you out?”  
  
Oh wait, maybe he’s up for another fight after all. He swings around and snaps “Um, because you did? You told me that you’ve been waiting for me to leave! And the way you’ve been acting for the past few days made it pretty clear that you were sick of me.”  
  
Lassiter jumps to his feet. “I didn’t tell you to leave!” he yells, “I said that I had been wondering when you were going to! Jesus Christ, Spencer, you think I don’t know that you never wanted to come back here in the first place? You wanted to go to…Alaska, or something.”  
  
“Alaska?” Shawn asks in confusion, rubbing his hand across his face. Yeah, he had entertained an idle daydream or two about Alaska, but how did Lassie know? Was he the psychic now? Whatever, he’s not going to let himself be distracted.   
  
“You’ve been either sniping at me or ignoring me for days, like you just couldn’t wait to be rid of me! I can take a fucking hint, Lassiter.”  
  
“Me? You’re the one who acts like he wants to be anywhere else!” He lowers his voice, not yelling anymore, just sounding resigned. “When you talked about how you had been all over the world and had all those adventures, you looked happy. You’re miserable here, Shawn. You don’t sleep, you barely eat, and whenever you’re in this house you look like you see ghosts in every corner. I hate myself for making you come back here.”  
  
Shawn looks at him in astonishment. “In case I didn’t make it clear years ago Lassie, you’ve never once been capable of making me doing something I didn’t want to do. And if anyone’s been miserable around here, it’s you! Every time we’re around someone you work with, you can’t decide if you want to introduce me as your boyfriend or if you want to pretend like we’re casual acquaintances. I get it, I do, but you’re not good at secrets, Lassie. You’re tearing yourself up with this. It would have been better for you if I’d never come back. I don’t blame you for kicking me out. Why wouldn’t you?”  
  
“No. No way, Spencer. You’re trying to turn this around so it’s about me, but it’s not. Let me make this crystal: I did not kick you out. You left.”  
  
“I did not! I only left because you wanted me to!”  
  
“I DON’T want you to! I just want you to be happy! I love you, you idiot!”  
  
“Well, I love you too, so stop trying to get rid of me!”  
  
They stared at each other for a moment, both breathing hard.   
  
“Fuck it,” Lassiter says finally, and pulls Shawn forward to kiss him.  
  
Lassie tastes like whiskey, but Shawn doesn’t care; he probably doesn’t taste that awesome right this moment himself, but that doesn’t seem to be slowing either one of them down. He brings his hands up to Lassie’s face, feeling the unshaven stubble against his palms, then runs his hands down to Lassiter’s chest, so he can shove him backward on to the couch again, dropping down on top of him to resume the kissing. After a moment though, he pulls away, pressing his hand against the center of Lassiter’s chest to keep him from moving.   
  
“What’s wrong?” Lassiter asks hoarsely. He’s been unbuttoning Shawn’s plaid shirt while they were kissing, and now his hands are warm against Shawn’s skin.  
  
“The last two times I tried to start something like this, you stopped me. Why?”  
  
Lassiter sighs and looks away. “I don’t know, Shawn. Because I didn’t want to keep sleeping with you if you were just going to leave me. Or because I didn’t want to make you feel obligated to stay if you really wanted to leave.”  
  
“And how has that changed this morning?”  
  
“It hasn’t,” Lassiter says frankly, “I just want you too much to worry about it anymore.”  
  
“I like the honesty,” Shawn says, “but I still feel like you owe me something.”  
  
“You want an apology, Spencer? Fine. I’m so—”  
  
“No, that’s not what I want.” He leans forward so he can whisper in Lassiter’s ear. “I want to make you beg for it.” He feels Lassie shiver beneath him, then licks at the tender spot beneath his ear, slides his tongue down to his neck, nips at his collarbone.   
  
Lassiter pushes Shawn’s shirt completely off, his hands stroking the muscles and bones of his back as Shawn kisses him again, relishing as always the feeling of Lassie’s hands on him. He shifts around, maneuvering them until Lassie is flat on his back on the couch with Shawn on top of him, and for a few minutes they stay like that, making out as they rut against each other, until Shawn forces himself to sit up.   
  
“I’m really glad you brought my wallet, Lassie,” he says, pulling it out of his pocket, flipping it open, and producing a condom.  
  
Lassiter looks at him in confusion. “Didn’t we use the condom in your wallet the other night? How many do you keep in there?”  
  
“One at a time. I restocked the next day. I like spontaneous sex, and I’m more responsible than people give me credit for.”  
  
“Great,” Lassiter grabs the waistband of his jeans and tries to pull him back down, “I admire your dedication to safe sex. Now, come back.”  
  
“No,” Shawn says, standing up and tossing the condom onto Lassiter’s chest, “I’m going to go upstairs and get that lotion we used the other night. You are going to stay right there. Don’t move.” He starts for the stairs, then pauses and turns around to say “I’m serious. Don’t move. I’ll know if you do,” before taking the stairs two at a time.  
  
He makes himself slow down a little when he gets to the top of the stairs, because it’s no fun if Lassie doesn’t have to wait for him. He finds the lotion and takes the cap off, the sense memory of the coconut smell causing him to pause for a moment and lean against the wall, rubbing himself through his jeans and reminding himself that it would be pretty silly to stay upstairs and jerk off when he has Lassie waiting on the sofa.  
  
Downstairs, he finds that despite his instructions, Lassiter has most definitely moved. Shawn sighs in mock disapproval.  
  
“For someone who claims to respect the chain of command, you’re terrible at taking orders.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lassiter says, trying to look innocent, which is nearly impossible for a half-naked, highly aroused man.  
  
“When I went upstairs, your pants were still zipped,” Shawn points out. “Now, not so much.”  
  
“Well, you took too long,” Lassiter grumbles. “Come back over here.”  
  
“It’s too bad you’re not wearing a tie this morning. Your ties have a lot of possibilities,” Shawn says, setting the lotion down on the table and picking his discarded shirt up from the floor. “And you don’t even have your handcuffs! That’s so unlike you. Though to be honest, in my experience, handcuffs aren’t very comfortable and can leave hard-to-explain marks.”  
  
“What are you talking about? And what the hell are you doing?” Lassiter asks warily, as Shawn resumes his earlier position straddling him on the sofa while twisting the shirt he’s holding into a makeshift rope.   
  
“I told you not to move,” Shawn reminds him, as he takes Lassiter’s wrists and binds them together with the shirt. The only reply from Lassiter is a sharply indrawn breath, but from the way his eyes dilate and the eager twitch of his cock that Shawn can feel even through his jeans, he seems most definitely interested.  
  
“This would be even better if I had something to tie you to,” Shawn muses as he stretches Lassiter’s bound hands over his head, “but this will have to do. You’ll just have to behave yourself.”  
  
The condom is still on Lassie’s chest, so Shawn sets it aside with the lotion, then grins lasciviously as he takes in the sight of Lassiter underneath him.   
  
“Goddamn, you’re hot Lassie,” he sighs, smoothing his hands across Lassiter’s chest up to his shoulders and leaning forward to kiss him. “Now, didn’t I say something about making you beg?”  
  
“Shawn, please,” Lassiter moans obediently, squirming with pleasure as Shawn kisses his way down Lassie’s chest, licking at his nipples and biting softly at the muscles of his stomach, sucking at the skin there until he’s sure he’s left a hickey.   
  
He pauses and looks up consideringly. “No, I’m afraid that’s not good enough as far as begging goes, Lassie. You’ll have to do better than that.”  
  
He quickly divests Lassiter of his pants and boxers, pointedly ignoring his erection, then discards the remainder of his own clothes as well, stroking himself and sighing in relief as he does.   
  
“THAT is not fair,” Lassiter complains, and Shawn grins.   
  
“Bondage so rarely is,” he agrees. “But don’t worry, Lass. Your time is coming, so to speak.”  
  
“Your puns are not a turn-on,” Lassiter says, but he’s immediately distracted by Shawn running a finger up the underside of his penis.   
  
“You don’t think so? I’ll have to work on that later. I have to admit, my thinking isn’t too clear right now,” Shawn says, and takes the head of Lassie’s cock into his mouth.  
  
“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Lassiter gasps, thrusting up into his mouth. Shawn pulls away reprovingly.  
  
“Didn’t I tell you to behave? Honestly, I thought *I* was the rebellious one.”  
  
“Please, please, please, Spencer…”  
  
“That’s better,” Shawn starts to say, only to be interrupted as Lassiter finishes his sentence with “… please suck my fucking dick.”  
  
Shawn laughs but does as he’s told, but only because it was something he wanted to do in the first place.  
  
He stops when he can feel Lassiter getting to close to the edge, leaning over and picking up the lotion and condom. A few minutes later and he’s working Lassie open with two fingers, then a third, and Lassiter is definitely begging in a way that Shawn approves of, with lots of swearing and gasping thrown in.  
  
“Your begging is much improved,” he says, licking at a bead of sweat on Lassie’s chest, “and you’re still tied up, even though we both know you could break out of that anytime you want to. I’m impressed.”  
  
“I… _god, yes_ … live to impress you, Spencer,” Lassiter moans, as Shawn twists his fingers, then withdraws them so that he can tear open the condom packet and rejuvenate his own too-long ignored erection.  
  
He fucks Lassiter hard and slow, trying to impress on him without actually saying anything that there’s no place he’d rather be, not Alaska or Morocco or the moon.  
  
It’s still somewhat overwhelming to realize that he’s with _Lassiter_ , the object of so many years of fantasies and frustrations, and he has to close his eyes for a few minutes to block the sight of Lassie’s fists clenched helplessly where Shawn bound his hands, from the intense gaze of Lassie’s blue eyes watching him, or this will be over much sooner than he wants it to be.  
  
When he fists Lassie’s cock to finally bring him off, Lassiter does free himself, his fingers digging sharply into Shawn’s hips.  
  
Coming is like solving an unsolvable mystery, jumping out of a plane, biting into a perfect piece of fruit, everything satisfying and thrilling and delicious that Shawn has ever known. Afterwards he collapses on Lassie’s chest, ignoring the stickiness between them in favor of listening to Lassie’s heartbeat and feeling the slightly shaking hands petting soothingly down his back.  
  
After a few minutes, he lifts his head and asks “Is it wrong that we so often end our fights by having sex?”  
  
“I honestly have no idea,” Lassiter replies. “It’s probably going to come back and bite us in the ass someday.”  
  
“Later,” Shawn says sleepily. “I don’t have the energy for ass-biting right now.”  
  
He’s interrupted by the ringing of Lassiter’s phone. Lassiter closes his eyes in consternation and lets it ring a few times.   
  
“I know you have to answer it, Lassie.”  
  
“I don’t want to,” he says grumpily, but reaches over to grab his pants and fish his phone out of his pocket. “What?” he snaps. He listens for a moment, frowning the entire time. “McIntyre,” he says after a few minutes, “we talked about this. I really don’t think…fine. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”  
  
“What’s going on?” Shawn asks, sitting up and grimacing as he removes the condom and ties it off.  
  
Lassiter stands and starts gathering up his clothes. “God, I’m going to have to go home and change clothes before I can go into the station. Um, he has an arrest warrant for Irma Shoemaker for the Smallwood murder.”  
  
“Oh,” Shawn frowns. “She didn’t do it.”  
  
“I know! McIntyre is convinced that she did though, and I guess he took his case to the chief. I need to get down there and see what I can do to clean this mess up. Your tip about the bullet hole paid off by the way. The forensics team found gunshot residue around the opening.” He pauses, looking at Shawn speculatively. “I know you’ve read all of my notes on the case. Do you know who did it?”  
  
“No. I’ve had some ideas, but…no. All I can say for sure is that Irma didn’t do it. Her statements were consistent and she lacks a strong motive.”  
  
Lassiter shakes his head in exasperation. “Why couldn’t you have made your points like that years ago? It sounds a lot more believable than your psychic spiel.”  
  
Shawn stands up as well and kisses him lightly on the cheek. “But my psychic spiel is so much more fun! Go on, go to work. I should call Gus.”  
  
Lassiter goes to the door, but turns around before opening it to look at Shawn again. “I meant it, you know, what I said before” he says quietly.  
  
“I know,” Shawn says, feeling like he probably has little cartoon hearts floating over his head. “Me too.”


	12. Chapter 12

After Lassiter leaves, Shawn takes a minute to do a little dance around the living room, because Lassiter loves him and wants him to stay and he can’t quite contain his happiness. He calls Gus and apologizes for not answering his phone all night and asks him to meet for breakfast burritos, then makes sure the house is locked up before leaving, taking one last look at the couch, which he’s going to have to have steam cleaned if he wants to sell or give away now.   
  
He goes back to Lassiter’s place before meeting Gus, to shower and change clothes, because he’s pretty sure he probably reeks of sex.  
  
When Gus sees him outside of the restaurant, he wraps Shawn up in a hug so tight that Shawn thinks he might leave bruises.  
  
“I’m so sorry, Shawn! I should never have said all that stuff last night. You’ll always be my best friend, you know that, right?”  
  
“I know,” Shawn assures him as he takes a step back, “but dude, you were right. I do take you for granted, and I’m really sorry. I should have thought more about how my leaving again would affect you. But you know, you’ve got the big, important job now, and a new girl, and…I guess a part of me thought that you didn’t really need me around anymore. Or that it might be easier for you if I’m not here, or something. And you know, I guess I also thought that maybe it was better if I wasn’t around to make you play detective anymore and put you in situations where you could get killed.”  
  
Gus gives him a look that suggests that he thinks Shawn is an idiot. “What’s wrong with you? I’m bored out of my mind when you’re not here. And you know, Shawn, I’m a grown-ass man. If I want to be a detective and almost get myself killed on a weekly basis, that’s my own damn business.”  
  
“Oh,” Shawn says consideringly. “Well, that makes sense. I am a lot of fun, and we did have a really good time being detectives. Come on, let’s go eat some breakfast. I’m starving.”  
  
Once they’re seated in a booth in the restaurant, Gus shakes his head in frustration. “I can’t believe you, man. How could you think I wouldn’t want you around? That would be like Butch without Sundance, Murtaugh without Riggs –”  
  
“Wait, do I have to be Mel Gibson in that scenario?”  
  
“Well, you’re not Danny Glover. He’s got common sense, like me.”  
  
“Right, Mr.-Won’t-Go-Into-The-Mummy-Room. Common sense is your middle name.”  
  
“Not messing with curses IS common sense, Shawn. You would know that if you had any.”  
Shawn grins, never happier to be trading stupid pop culture references, and looks down at his menu.   
  
“So,” Gus asks carefully, “did you and Carlton talk?”  
  
“Yeah. You were right, I was wrong, he didn’t actually kick me out, I’m an idiot. Let us never speak of it again.”  
  
“I TOLD you,” Gus says smugly, but he turns serious again as he says “What I don’t understand is why you were so ready to believe that he had broken up with you. You two have spent over six years fighting with each other. Usually you’re better at reading him than that.”  
  
Shawn shrugs uncertainly. “I’ve thought all along that we were on borrowed time, that we would get sick of each other, and I guess I just jumped to conclusions. And well, I haven’t been sleeping well lately, so I guess I was just ready to snap.”   
  
“Shawn, why didn’t you tell me that you were having a hard time sleeping? I work in pharmaceuticals, remember? I could probably get you something that would help.”  
  
“Nah, thanks, but you know I hate stuff like that. It makes my thinking all foggy.”  
  
“And not getting enough sleep keeps you sharp?” Gus asks sarcastically.  
  
“Well, and also, everything I’ve ever tried before causes me to have really vivid nightmares. And I’m already having those, so…”  
  
“So you can’t sleep and when you do you have nightmares. How long has that been going on, Shawn? Anything else you haven’t told me?”  
  
“Come on, Lassie had to have told you some of this already.”  
  
Gus sighs. “He told me that you sometimes had a hard time sleeping, but you know how tight-lipped he is – no, don’t interrupt by saying something dirty about Lassiter’s lips – so it was all very vague and I didn’t realize it was still going on. Also,” he adds pointedly, “he probably assumed that you had already told me.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Gus, okay? It’s just…it’s something I have to work through myself. I wonder if they have any raspberries? I could go for some raspberry pancakes.”  
  
“Shawn, don’t change the subject! You don’t have to do this alone. We could…are you even listening to me?”  
  
“No, sorry,” Shawn says distractedly, staring in fascination at the way the condiments are arranged on the table. There’s something about them that reminds him of the way that bullet hole in the alley had been positioned, something about the angle of how the shooter had to have been standing…“Sorry, Gus, I just…I think I just solved the murder that Lassie’s been working on. It all has to do with the position of the gunman in the alley,” he fingers the salt shaker speculatively, then moves it so that it’s behind the ketchup bottle, “and who had the right motive.”  
  
“You mean you’ve been working on a case with Lassiter?” Gus asks, and for the first time all morning he sounds genuinely upset.  
  
“No! No, I’ve just been reading the case file when I can’t sleep. And the other day…god, I guess it was yesterday, I walked through the crime scene, just out of curiosity.”  
  
There’s silence on the other side of the table. Shawn tears his eyes away from the positioning of the salt and ketchup to look at Gus, who is now sitting with his arms folded across his chest and a hurt expression on his face.  
  
“I thought we were partners in the detective business, Shawn! What are you doing working on a case without me?”  
  
“I didn’t mean to! I sort of…solved it by accident.”  
  
“I’m sure Lassiter will be thrilled to hear that.”  
  
“I should call him,” Shawn says, taking out his phone. After a few minutes, he frowns at it in frustration. “He’s not answering. McIntyre brought in a suspect this morning. They’re probably questioning her now.”  
  
“So what are we going to do?”  
  
“We could go down to the station,” Shawn says hesitantly, his heart beating a little faster just at the thought. “If I’m right, then I think the murderer might be there right now. He probably thinks he’s about to get away with it.”  
  
Gus stands up and throws a few dollars on the table to pay for the coffee they’ve had. “Let’s go.”  
  
“Don’t you have to go to work?” Shawn asks, standing up as well.  
  
“I’m using a sick day. I was up all night worrying about my best friend, remember?”  
  
Once they’re in the car, Shawn asks “Do you miss Psych?”  
  
“Are you kidding? It was the best damn job I’ve ever had. I miss it every day.”  
  
“Me too,” Shawn says. “Lassie has said that he won’t tell the Chief the truth if we want to start it up again, but I don’t know if I could, Gus. I mean, I could totally do the detective part again, but I’m not sure I have it in me to fake psychic visions forever. After seeing how much it hurt Jules…I don’t know, I don’t feel like lying anymore.”  
  
“Maybe there’s another way,” Gus says. “if you’re really interested in working on cases again, we’ll figure something out. Frankly, if we could find a way to make it work, I might ask for a demotion and go back to my old job. I hate what I’m doing now.”  
  
“Okay then,” Shawn agrees, “we’ll make it happen somehow.”  
  
It’s strange walking into the police station again. Shawn sees several officers that they’ve worked with in the past staring at them, clearly surprised to see them again after so long, but for the time being he ignores everyone until he spots Buzz and makes a beeline for him.  
“Buzz, hey! Do you know where Detective Lassiter is?”  
  
“Shawn!” Buzz gasps in delight “And Gus!” he throws his arms around Gus, who makes a desperate “eeep” sound, his eyes wide with alarm. Shawn considers rescuing him, but is distracted by the sound of Lassiter talking, so he just pats Buzz gently on the back and says “Don’t break Gus, I’m going to need him later,” and takes off in the direction of Lassie’s voice.  
  
He spots Lassiter and McIntyre coming out of one of the interrogation rooms with a weeping woman in handcuffs. A man in the waiting area stands up as they approach, coming forward to speak to the woman.  
  
“Don’t worry, Irma, we’ll hire a lawyer and have these ridiculous charges dropped. I know you didn’t do this awful thing.”  
  
“Of course you do,” Shawn says, skidding to a halt beside them. “Because you killed Garrison Smallwood, didn’t you?”  
  
“Spencer! What are you doing here?” Lassiter asks, gaping at him. He’s showered and changed clothes too, Shawn notices, but still looks scruffily unshaven.  
  
“Mr. Spencer, what the hell is going on?” McIntyre asks angrily. “What are you and Professor Honeypot doing here?”  
  
Shawn glances behind him to see that Gus has joined them, then turns his attention back to the two strangers.  
  
“Excuse my rudeness,” he says politely. “You are Donald Shoemaker, are you not?” he waits for the man to nod in confirmation before continuing, “My name is Shawn Spencer, and in the past I worked as a consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department. I’m here today because I know that you, Irma, are innocent of the crime of which you’ve been accused. The real culprit is your husband Donald here.”  
  
“This is insane!” Donald shouts, looking from Shawn to McIntyre “Are you just going to stand there and let this crazy person make wild accusations?”  
  
“Of course not. Mr. Spencer, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if you don’t leave immediately, I’m going to have you arrested.”  
  
“Wait,” Lassiter says, holding up his hand. “Spencer, what makes you think that Donald did it?”  
  
McIntyre interrupts before Shawn can speak. “Are you serious, Lassiter? I realize this person is a friend of yours, but we’ve already arrested Mrs. Shoemaker for the murder. I’m not interested in hearing any crackpot theories.”  
  
“I am,” says someone from behind Shawn. “In fact, I’m very interested.”  
  
Shawn turns around to see Chief Vick leaning against a desk, her arms crossed and the barest hint of a smile on her face. “Please Mr. Spencer, continue.”  
  
“I don’t believe this,” McIntyre mutters, as Shawn launches into what he privately thinks is probably one of his best wrap-ups ever, particularly given the fact that he solved the case without speaking to anyone actually involved. When he’s done explaining the elaborate lengths Donald Shoemaker went to in order to kill Garrison Smallwood and frame his wife for murder, Lassiter removes the handcuffs from Irma’s wrists and puts them on her husband, who is spewing invective at Shawn.  
  
“You goddamn fucking piece of shit!”  
  
“Really, dude,” Shawn says primly, “your choice of words says a lot more about you than it does about me.”  
  
McIntyre is staring at the whiteboard Shawn commandeered at one point in order to sketch out the details of how Donald had committed the murder in the alley. “How did you…?” he trails off, staring at Shawn in confusion.   
  
In the past, Shawn would have responded by saying he was psychic and that it all came to him in a vision, but now he just shrugs and grins. “Impressive, isn’t it?”  
  
“It certainly is,” Chief Vick says, coming to stand beside him. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Spencer, and you as well Mr. Guster. We’ve missed you.”  
  
“We’ve missed you too, Chief,” Gus says, and Shawn nods in agreement.  
  
“I couldn’t help but notice that during that little summation, you didn’t once say that you saw the murder in a vision, Mr. Spencer. There was also a good deal less flailing about than normal.”  
  
“Um, yeah,” Shawn says uncomfortably, scratching his head. “My, um, psychic powers are…” he trails off, completely unsure of how to proceed. Tell the truth and possibly get arrested, or continue a lie that he’s tired of? Before he can decide, Vick smoothly interrupts him.  
  
“I’ve heard that sometimes in the event of a big life change or trauma, gifts like psychic powers can be altered, or even disappear completely. With all you’ve been through this year, I was wondering if something like that might have happened to you?”  
  
Shawn stares at her with his mouth hanging open until Gus elbows him in the side. “Yeah. Yeah! That’s right Chief, it was something like that.”  
  
She smirks a little, nodding. “I thought it might be. Still though, even without your, uh, psychicness, that was a remarkable piece of detective work. You know, I think I have room in my budget for a pair of consultants, whether one of them is psychic or not. Why don’t you two come by tomorrow after lunch and we can talk about it?”  
  
“Chief,” Gus says, smiling hugely, “we would be thrilled.”  
  
Lassiter reappears, having presumably taken Donald to a holding cell, and Shawn tries to catch his eye to see if maybe they can get a few minutes alone, but Lassie appears to be lost in thought and isn’t looking in his direction. Chief Vick also sees Lassiter come back into the room and calls him over.  
  
“Detective Lassiter! Please join us. I was just--”  
  
“I’m dating Spencer!” Lassiter blurts out.  
  
Shawn swings around to stare at him in astonishment, which is pretty much what everyone else is doing too, because Lassie hadn’t exactly been using his indoor voice; he had been speaking loudly enough that he clearly intended for everyone in the room to hear him.  
  
“No,” Lassiter amends, “that’s not true. I’m _living with_ Spencer. Shawn. He’s living with me. We’re living together now. Not that it’s anyone’s business,” he adds, scowling, “but it’s not a secret.”  
  
Everyone is gawking at him now, McIntyre and Buzz and Chief Vick and all of the detectives and uniformed officers milling around the office, and for the second time in a matter of minutes, Shawn finds that he’s speechless. Now that he’s spilled his guts, Lassiter also appears to be at a loss for words. It’s Chief Vick who once again comes to the rescue.   
  
“Okay, people, back to work! We may have caught one murderer today, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of criminals to catch!”  
  
Everyone scatters, though there are still a number of people staring curiously between Shawn and Lassiter. Gus leans over to him and asks “Did you know he was going to do that?”  
  
“That would be a resounding no,” Shawn says “hey, would you mind hanging out here for a few more minutes? I need to talk to him before we leave.”  
  
“No problem. Buzz wants to show me sonogram pictures.”  
  
Lassiter isn’t standing where he was a few minutes before, and he’s not at his desk. On a hunch, Shawn goes down to the interrogation rooms and finds him sitting alone and staring blankly at the wall. Shawn goes in and sits on the table next to Lassie’s chair.   
  
They sit in silence for a long moment, because Shawn is determined to not speak until he knows where Lassiter’s head is at. Finally, Lassiter sighs and looks up at Shawn.  
  
“Did I really just out myself in front of the entire department?”  
  
“Yes, yes you did,” Shawn confirms. “It was very exciting!”  
  
“Oh, god.”  
  
“And then,” Shawn continues gently, “the Chief told everyone to get back to work and they did. The people who work here Lassie, they all respect you. Well, and some of them are terrified of you. Either way, all that’s going to happen is that people will gossip for a few days, and then something juicier will come to their attention, like the fact that Detective Williams is cheating on his wife with Officer Korski, and it will all blow over.”  
  
Lassiter sighs and scrubs his hand across his face. “You’re right, I know you’re right, and…wait, Williams and Korski? Seriously?”  
  
“Oh yeah. His body language was practically screaming ‘do me again!’ when he was standing next to her out there. Speaking of which…” He lays a hand against Lassiter’s face and leans forward to kiss him. Not as much as he’d like, because he’s trying to be mindful of the fact that Lassie’s already skittish about how this relationship is going to affect his work, but he can’t restrain himself anymore.   
  
“Did I mention, that was pretty amazingly romantic what you did in there?” Shawn asks softly after they part.  
  
“You think so?” Lassiter asks, perking up at the compliment.  
  
“What I think is that you should try not to work too late tonight,” Shawn says, kissing him quickly again before standing up. “When you get home, we can discuss my feelings on the matter. Naked.”  
  
Lassiter hesitates before also standing. “There are still some things we need to talk about, Shawn.”  
  
“Yep. And we will. Later.”  
  
On his way back up to the bullpen, he’s stopped by Chief Vick, who puts her hand on his arm and steps in close enough so that no one else can overhear them.  
  
“I’m sorry I never got the opportunity to really talk to you after Henry died, Shawn. I knew your dad for a long time, and I can’t pretend to understand how complicated your relationship with him was, but I hope you know how insanely proud he was of you.”  
  
He has to blink against the sudden prick of tears in his eyes. “That means a lot to me. Thank you, Karen…Chief,” he amends quickly, as her expression goes stern.  
  
“Now, about this relationship between you and my head detective,” she continues, and Shawn braces himself for a lecture, “you two try to be good to each other, okay? You’re both so damn stubborn, but I really believe you could make each other happy.”  
  
“I think you’re right,” he says, and after looking around quickly to make sure no one is paying attention to them, he gives her a quick hug. “Thanks again, Chief. I’ll see you tomorrow!”  
  
He finds Gus still with Buzz, who beams when he comes walking up. “That’s so great about you and Detective Lassiter, Shawn! I always thought you two would make a nice couple.”  
  
“Thanks, Buzz. Hey Gus, would you mind driving me to Lassie’s place? I think I’m ready for a nap.”  
  
When they step out of the station, Shawn extends his fist to Gus, who grins and bumps it, and all is right with the world.  
  
Shawn sleeps for most of the day, almost six hours straight, and when he wakes the only dream he can remember is one in which the little boy cat brings him an elaborately wrapped present, which, when he opens it, turns out to be a pineapple.  
  
He wonders if he can talk Lassie into letting him get a cat.  
  
He gets out of bed and makes himself a snack, thinking as he does about the unresolved issues that Lassie apparently thinks they still need to discuss, most of which, he realizes, are probably regarding his inability to talk about anything that’s bothering him. He knows that it drives Lassiter nuts that he won’t discuss his nightmares, or his insomnia, or his panic attacks. It’s just that he hates dwelling on things that make him unhappy. Lassiter seems to think that talking about these things would help somehow (and how is it that Lassie’s the one advocating for this, when in the past he’s so often been such a boiling cauldron of repression?), but Shawn’s not convinced. However, since Lassie stepped up to the plate and did something that terrified him today, Shawn is willing to concede that maybe it’s his turn to do something scary.   
  
He’s bouncing around the condo restlessly, looking for something to do when Lassiter comes home, and after enthusiastically kissing him at the door, Shawn says “I know you just got home, but can we go for a walk or something?”  
  
As they walk, Shawn asks “So, what happened after I left this morning?”  
  
Lassiter shrugs. “I processed the paperwork on Donald Shoemaker. Everyone kept staring at me, so I yelled at them. Buzz congratulated me,” he winces slightly “I might have yelled at him too. And then, the Chief called me into her office and told me that you and Guster were probably going to start consulting again, and asked if that would be a problem.”  
  
“Will it?”  
  
“Honestly? There are probably going to be times when we both want to kill each other if we’re living together and working together. But Spencer, you walked into the station today and solved a case without talking to a single witness or interviewing any of the suspects, without doing anything other than reading the facts of the case and visiting the crime scene once. A case I worked on for two weeks without solving, I might add.”  
  
Shawn frowns. The last thing he wants is for Lassie to feel threatened. “I had a different perspective--” he starts to say.   
  
“No, don’t do that,” Lassiter says. “You’re an amazing detective. The best. I’ve been learning to live with that for years. At least now, I know how you do it. What I’m saying is, my ego can take it, Spencer.”  
  
“Yeah? Just, don’t forget, you’re a pretty amazing detective too, Lassie, and we’re a team, you and me and Gus.” He pauses and adds “I haven’t decided about McIntyre yet. I wish I could figure out a way to get Jules back. Then everything would be perfect.”  
  
Shawn has led them to the beach. It’s not deserted – a guy jogs past them as they walk, and a few yards away a woman is walking a dog – but they very nearly have it to themselves. Cautiously, Shawn takes Lassiter’s hand, and is pleased when he doesn’t pull away.   
  
“I haven’t been to the beach since dad died,” he says. “I’ve missed it.”  
  
The sun is just starting to set, and the waves are rolling onto the shore, and all in all he thinks it might be the most beautiful place he’s ever been.  
  
“Lassie? This morning you said that you thought I wanted to leave. I just want you to know…I’m not going anywhere. You’ll have to make me leave to get rid of me.”  
  
Lassiter stops walking and pulls Shawn close to kiss him, slow and deep, and even though he remembers everything, Shawn makes a special point of committing this moment to memory, the setting sun and the crashing waves and the blatant public display of affection, because he can’t imagine anything more perfect.   
  
“Wow,” Shawn teases breathlessly when they break apart, “that was out in public and everything. You’ve really embraced the whole ‘coming out’ thing.”  
  
“There’s barely anyone here,” Lassie point out, “so I’m not sure this really counts as ‘public’.”  
  
“It counts,” Shawn assures him, resting his head against Lassiter’s shoulder and feeling, at last, like he’s home.  
  
THE END


End file.
